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- "| am the most important 
person inthe software 
industry” Is he? - 

page 30 








SPECIAL SECTIONS FOR 
Amiga « Amstrad CPC + 
Amstrad PCI + Atari ST + 
BBC C64 MSX PC» QL 






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MS-DOS - page 13 
ginners 14 • Entertainment 16 • Tech Tips 20 ° PSsst 3 


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Express Analysis 


The stories that come out of the railway sid- 
ings at Slough are rarely less than astounding 
and if Atari could just release product to 
match the quality of the pre-announcements, 
it'd take the world by storm. 

(Seen any Atari CD-ROMs in your High 
Street dealers yet? What about the ultra- 
cheap laser printer? The price-busting Mega 
STs? Any of the much-vaunted blitter 
upgrades?) 

As it is, what are we to make of the news 
that Atari is to take its best-selling computer, 
turn it into a dedicated games console, and 
sell it for about a third of its current price? 

Тһе first observation is that this looks 
clearly like an American idea. Consoles have 
been a bigger success in the US than in 
Britain, largely because there's room in the 
US home for a dedicated games machine. 

Second, such a move probably makes sense 
in the US, where sales of the ST have been 
distinctly underwhelming. Atari may expect 
to sell more $199 ST games machines than it 
can sell ST computers. 

But it seems equally obvious that such a 
scheme is a nonsense in the British market. 
Consoles gasped their last several years ago 
when the first enthusiasm for computers 
made best-sellers of the Spectrum, Vic-20 and 
BBC Micro. And although Sega, Nintendo and 
Atari claim to detect signs of life, the patient 
still looks distinctly comatose. 

For the vast majority of computer owners, 
consoles represent a step backwards. Sure, 
you can play arcade conversions, but you can 
do that on a C64, an Amiga or on an ST. You 
can also play adventures, run graphics pack- 
ages and music programs, write letters and 
use any of dozens of other applications. On a 
console, you can do none of these. 

Turning the ST into a console has its points 
only if you've got something else to take its 
place. Atari hasn't. With memory chips rarer 
than a politician's kept promise, the Mega 
STs aren't going to be pouring off the produc- 
tion lines. The Transputer Workstation is a 
long way (and about £2,000) from being an ST 
replacement. 

‘The ST console may be coming, but you can 
bet you won't be able buy one next year. 


COMPUTER 


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EDITOR 
Peter Worlock 
NEWS EDITOR 
Colin Campbell 
REVIEWS EDITOR 
Andy Storer’ 
STAFF WRITER 
Rik Haynes 
PRODUCTION EDITOR 
Rod Lawton 
ART EDITOR 
Julia O'Shea 


ADVERTISING MANAGER 
Mark Salmon 
ADVERTISING SALES 
Jenny Evans + Sophie Lankenau 


PUBLISHER 
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Future Publishing Ltd 
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Tel: 0225 446034 Fax: 0225 446019 


Printers: Redwood. Trowbridge. Wits 

Distribution: Seymour Distribution 

334 Brixton Road. London SW9 7AG 
Tel 01-773 4444 


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No part of this publication may be reproduced in any 
form without prior permission. 














Holidays 
in the sun 


So keen is Tynesoft to get its games 
out on time that its team of pro- 
grammers have been promised a 
week in Florida if their deadlines 
are met. 

Fourteen programmers аге cur- 
rently “working round the clock” in 
order to complete Superman and 
Circus Games. They should be 


available later this month. 

“Ош bread and butter is the pro- 
grammers,” commented boss Colin 
Courteney. “But it's no good them 
throwing me a load of rubbish and 
expecting to go to Florida.” Presum- 
ing that the programmers succeed 
Tynesoft is looking at an estimated 
bill of £14,000 





Commodore eyes students 
for low cost Amiga offer 


Students may soon be able to buy Commodore's 
Amiga or one of its PCs at discount prices. 

Talks are currently underway which would either offer 
a ‘pay after you graduate’ loan or would simply 
make the machines available at sub retail prices. 
Seemingly both the Open University and the National 
Union of Students are involved in tentative discussions. 

The offer will not differ dramatically from that made 
by the NUS and Midland Bank whereby students can 
buy up to £1,000 worth of Amstrad kit. They then sim 
ply pay interest while at college, with proper payments 





student 


beginning on graduation 


The Amigas well documented graphic: 
appeal to art and design students as well as the pow 
ers-that-be in the Department of Education and Science. 
It seems likely that Commodore's ultra low cost PC1 will 
also be on offer. It currently retails at little over £300, 


making it among the cheapest PCs 


The next 
Lucasfilm 


batch of titles from 
Games, George Star 
8 software arm, are to 
be published here by US Gold. 
Previously handled mainly by 
Activision in the UK, the US firm 
has geared up its development 
program with US Gold expecting to 
launch six Lucasfilm games next 
year as well as a batch of big name 








Zak McKraken: leading Lucas bunch 


movie licences. 

The Birmingham company is 
now beginning work on Indiana 
Jones: The Last Crusade. Gold will 





capabilities 


O PC1: Students deal? 


be releasing any film titles 
licenced onto arcade machines 
including the rights to any Star 
Wars fims which might emerge. 

US Gold is currently "sitting on" 
two titles: Zak McKraken and the 
Alien Mindbenders features an 
involved movie type scenario 'star- 
ring’ a seedy reporter for a Sunday 
Sport type magazine (Zak) who 
stumbles across real space 
invaders. Battlehawks 1942 is an 
air combat simulation cum arcade 
game based above the Pacific. 

Indiana Jones goes on Cinema 
release here late next summer — 
the game should follow soon after. 

Lucasfilm Games itself has 
recently changed its course. In the 
past its titles were published by 
the likes of Electronic Arts and 
Epyx in the US. Now though the 
firm is taking care of its own 
affairs. 

Douglas Glen of Lucasfilm called 
US Gold a “strong publisher” 
adding that he hoped to continue 
in the UK through that firm on a 
long term basis. US Gold's boss 
Geoff Brown unsurprisingly 
described the games as “terrific” 

On Lucasfilm's switch from 
Activision to Gold he offered: 

Maybe they like us better than 
Activision.” 








Accodata stands 
around 


Accodata's crusade for making life that lit- 
tle bit easier continues. 

The computer consumables firm has 
launched an £18 printer stand which incor- 
porates essentials such as paper catcher 
and what is bafflingly described as "the 
optimum angle for ease of monitoring". 
Apparently foam pads also cut down noise. 





O Accodata's stand: Essential? 


Scan to fax 

The latest addition to the growing num- 
ber of handheld scanners is Kempston's 
Daatascan. 

Costing £275 it can pick up images 
from newspapers, photographs, books; 
save them onto a DTP program on the ST 
and print out on an Epson or compatible 
printer Daatascan images can also be 
incorporated onto Kempston's filofax 
compatible *Daatafax* organiser. 


Training queues 


A new series of training courses are now 
available through Computerands 21 
learning centres. Popular subjects for the 
moment include CAD and DTP.Computer- 
Land isnt promising a fun time but seem- 
ingly 6,000 people went last year. 





EE] * NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS 














ATARI PLANS £99 ST 
GAMES CONSOLE 


Atari will launch a games console next year based on 
existing ST hardware and priced at a competition-bust- 
ing price tag of £99, UK boss Bob Gleadow has told 
Express 

The initial launch will be at the New York Toy Fair next 
January, with first supplies of the console through the 
major high street chain stores in the early summer. How 
ever, it won't be until the autumn that the machine will 
be fully available 

The company is hoping that the cream of the existing 











© Gleadow: Heralding in 16-bit console. 


ST software will be converted to cartridge format, proba- 
bly not a difficult process at least for straightforward 
arcade games. Obviously, adventures and other games 
relying heavily on keyboard input will be ruled out. At 
present, Atari is talking about a £25 price tag for the car. 
tridges. 

We will be launching a 68000-based console in "89, 
confirmed Gleadow, "but there's no point in having full 
distribution before September." 

He added: "The idea is to launch it at the Toy Show 
and start selling to multiples in May." 

The big question is why Atari should want to intro: 
duce such a system. If it's a success it can only hurt the 
520ST which the company can continue selling at £299 
If it isn't expected to sui ed, why bother? 

But Atari's move should heat up the looming 16-bit 
console war. Sega is also launching a 16-bit console into 
the UK at around the same time, and Nintendo claims 
that it too will offer a 16-bit model, although that won't 
be seen here for another two or three years. 

Welsh joystick manufacturer Konix is also working on a 
console, reported to be due for launch in January. The 
firm is being secretive about developments though; 
when quizzed on the subject one senior employee 
offered: "I don't know what you're talking about.” 

However, several software houses have apparently 
seen the console, and reaction is rumoured to be very 
positive. Price should be just on the high side of £100, 
which is competitive with existing Sega and Nintendo 
consoles 








Microsoft saves 
manual labour 


© CD-ROM: Programmers tool 


Programmers bogged down by tons of 
manuals can now take heart that 
Microsoft is soon to launch more than 
20,000 pages of reference on a CD- 
ROM disk. 

Containing 48 books and technical 
publications the disk is apparently 
indexed and cross referenced for fast 
retrieval. All material can be copied 
directly into programs without rekey- 
ing. 

Microsoft says that such a device is 
essential for todays programmer who 
is juggling a plethora of languages 
and environments. It currently retails 
at $395 Stateside, When it will be 
launched here is not yet clear. > 

Books contained on the compact 
disk include Inside OS/2, Program- 
ming Windows, The MS/DOS Ency- 
clopaedia and Proficient С. 








With the cold and grey winter months approach- 
ing it only seems logical that the best thing to do 
is...play cricket. 

Audiogenic's long-time meisterpiece Graham 
Gooch's Test Cricket is due out from Alternative 
at £1.99. Alternative reckons the game will go 


tour of India. 


chaps at Alte 
poned indefii 





An Alternative winter pastime 


down a treat given that Gooch himself is leading 
our world renouned cricketers toward a glorious 


Well, up to a point. Someone ought to tell those 


ernative that the tour has been post- 
initely in a swirl of ugly controversy. 











@ Katakis: Recast, rewritten and re-released? 


The spectre of the stifled US Gold/ 
Rainbow Arts game Katakis still 
looms. 

Seemingly US Gold is pondering 
releasing a new game born “out of 
the ashes” of Katakis. That title — if 
it appears - will be Denaris. Ger 
many based Rainbow Arts is in the 
process of re-writing the game and 
presenting it to Gold which licences 
Arts’ products for the UK. 

Katakis was taken off the UK mar- 
ket two months ago after Activision 
called in its legal people claiming 





the game was a direct rip off of R - 
Type. Gold is cautious enough to 
warn Rainbow Arts that if Denaris 
resembles R-Type in any way it will 
be rejected immediately. 

"Rainbow Arts sends us product 
and if it's good then we take it but 
not if it's no good,” said Gold's David 
Baxter. “I told Rainbow Arts two 
months ago that Katakis is not a 
product we want to release. It needs 
to be re-written.” 

However, if Denaris does not 
resemble Katakis it's hard to see 


how Rainbow Arts can flag it as a 
direct descendent. “Katakis got a lot 
of publicity,” explained Baxter. “It 
had excellent reviews presumably 
because it's a better a game than R - 
Туре." 

He added: “It's really a marketing 
ploy - the game Activision tried to 
ban...” For Activision, UK boss Rod 
Cousens warned that any such 
game faintly resembling R-Type 
would result in renewed legal action 
and moves would be made to take it 
off the market. 











NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS + E 








Stratum sprints to 
PPC hard disk 


An internal hard disk is soon to be 
launched by Stratum Technology. 

It is internally interfaced and powered 
and can apparently easily replace one of 
the portable's 3.5 inch disk drives. Stratum 
is currently beavering away to finish the 
Sprint 20 by the end of the year when it 
‘will cost little under £500. 


Cheetah flexes muscle 


Joystick manufacturer Cheetah is 
going into full predator mode. 

Far Eastern importers are being 
warned that if any of their joysticks 
break Cheetah's patents, royalties will 
be sought. In particular, Cheetah is 
looking carefully at infra red joysticks. 

Cheetah apparently paid £5,000 for 
such a patent (which doesn't cover nor- 
mal light guns) four years ago when it 
launched the Ratt infra red joystick. 
Boss Howard Jacobson, though, is hop- 
ing that his competitors will make a 
success of their ventures. 

“We're not going to jump in and say 
"вор selling these’. I hope they sell mil- 
lions and we'll go for our share of the 
royalties, said Jacobson. Cheetah is 
currently checking with legal people 
how strong the patent is and which 
products it covers, including the possi- 
bility of it covering infra red guns. 


Archimedes gets a Basic boost 


BBC Basic V оп the 
Archimedes is no slouch, but 
like all interpreted Basics it 
hardly allows you to get the 
most from the machine. Dabs 
Press has a welcome solution 
in the form of ABC - the 
Archimedes Basic Compiler. 

ABC will take a standard 
Basic V program and compile 
it to a stand-alone machine 
code file. Dabs claims almost 
complete compatibility with 
existing Basic syntax, so pro: 
grams can be tested and 
debugged in the interpreter 
before compilation. 


Another software house has decided to try its hand at 


arcade machines. 


The crucial factor, though, 
is speed and ABC appears to 
do the business: Dabs is 
claiming increases in execu- 
tion speed of up to 4000%, 
with most benchmarks run- 
ning between 10 and 30 
times faster. If you need 


more speed, ABC allows the 

use of in-line assembler with- 

in programs. 
Written by Paul 


Fellows, 
head of the team responsible 
for Arthur, ABC will be avail- 
able from next week, at a 
Price of £99.95 inc VAT. 











curious environments. 
The latest order 


centre іп Ireland. 


Acorn fired up 


Acorn's Archimedes is becoming 
increasingly popular in the most 


the firm 


parading is to an artillery training 


Seemingly, 


Following MicroProses moves into that area in late 
summer German publisher Rainbow Arts is set to 
launch three arcade machines. They should be set up 
here by the middle of next year. 

And the games will be appearing on popular home 
computers - including PCs – by Christmas 89 through 
US Gold. Gold though is not involved in the arcade 
machine venture directly. 

Apparently tha hardware has already been devel- 
oped. Rainbow Arts is keen to stress that it is not 
based on machines such as the Amiga or ST as has 
been the case with one other arcade machine manufac: 


trainee gunners get to demolish 
targets by working out grid refer- 
ences and the like on a system 
enticingly named the Westland 
Indirect Fire Trainer. 

We are assured that the 
Archimedes also runs à full sound 
and graphics simulation of the 


turer. 


First out will be a "Ghosts and Goblins type game" 


called Dark Chamber followed by Monster Olympics — 


a comic style sports affair. The third game has yet to be 


named. 


"We've tied up good graphics and games designers 
commented managing director Mark Ullrich 


for this," 


© in the arcades: Rainbow Arts to move in 


On the software releases Ullrich commented 





“We 


want the games to become popular in the arcades 


before we release computer versions.” 
Rainbow Arts expects to have 2,000 machines in 


shot. 


“They've done games such as Giana Sisters and 
Garrison." 


place throughout Germany of each game. A similar 
number can be expected for the UK 














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Ee * NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS 














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Amstrad in the Lookine lac 


LITTLE MORE THAN A MONTH 
AFTER ITS LAUNCH THE РС200 SIN- 
CLAIR PROFESSIONAL IS STILL 
SOMETHING OF AN ENIGMA TO 
HORDES OF GAMERS AND — 
AMSTRAD WATCHERS. COLIN 
CAMPBELL TALKS TO THE LEISURE 
SOFTWARE HOUSES AND FINDS 
OUT HOW ENTHUSIASTIC THEY 
ARE... E 

















The chin wagging brigade is up to its old tricks. 
Amstrad's legions of self appointed experts and 
analysts have spent the last month or so babbling 
about the new beast — the Sinclair Pro or PC200 
(depending on whichever name you prefer). 

Not least among these prognosticators are the 
games publishers. They have the task of deciding 
whether or not Amstrad's curious beast is about 
to open up a glorious era of PC gaming. 

A whole swathe of new computer users keen to 
spend lots of money on a format which has hith: 
erto restricted itself mainly to the comparatively 
dull world of spreadsheets and such may be 
emerging. 

At least that's the theory in this island. Else- 
where in the big bad world the PC format has 
long been regarded as the status quo for games. 

So are the publishers ready to deploy all their 
games onto PC terrain? The obvious answer to 
that is yes 

Established PC owners (at least Amstrad ones) 
will know theres already a fair splattering of 
games available. By all accounts though they are 
dominated by the mature and thought provoking 
types with flight simulations riding highest. 

But those eyeing the PC 200 as a real possibility 
(for gaming) can rest assured that even the more 
puerile titles so beloved of the British gamer will 
turn up on the PC eventually 


Atlantic goal 


From the software houses perspective the cur- 
rent situation is simple. There is a big market 
across the Atlantic for PC games so titles likely to 
appeal to Americans get transferred to PC any- 
way and hauled off. And US companies (EA, 
Mediagenic, Epyx, MicroProse et al) write all their 
games for the PC anyway and ship most of them 
over here. 

Like many hardened gamers though the powers 
that be in the software house's top floor offices 
have their doubts about Amstrad's latest. 

Firstly, it's the same price as an ST and palpably 
not as appealing as a games machine. Those cur- 
rently staring balefully at their Spectrums and 64s 
are more likely to trade up to an ST or Amiga than 
a four colour Amstrad РС 

Secondly, there are now nine different Amstrad 
PCs between £300 and £600 (three PC200s, three 
1512s, two 1640s and the low end 2086). That's 
not including the four versions of the portable 
within those parameters 

Thirdly, nobody in the know is at all impressed 
with the CGA monitor. It's hard to see the £399 
mono version selling well to gamers and how 
good the TV link up on the £299 standard is yet to 
be ascertained. Again, four colour capability looks 


a trifle weak beside the blazing blur of a decent 
ST or Amiga offering. 

And yet the publishers will still support it heavi- 
ly because, without getting too boring, they 
appreciate Amstrad's unbelievable skill at per- 
suading the masses to fork out. Amstrad's mar- 
keting muscle is the envy of many a throbby cor- 
poration and awards have dutifuly been 
bestowed on Mr Sugar for his well documented 
businessacumen. The firm is currently 
gearing up for an absolute corker of an 
advertising campaign. And, despite 
perennial shortages, Amstrad's skill at. 
getting hardware to market is 
unmatched in the low end PC arena. 


Mum's the word 


Apart from that the software 
houses have à suspicion that it 
wont be games players buying the 

machine but that old sector of the populace 
everyone loves to rely on - parents. That the kids 
will soon draft in games to replace awful educa- 
tion packages is understood by Amstrad and 
understood by the software houses. 

"Experienced users will go for the ST or Amiga, 
thinks Alternatives boss Roger Hulley. "This is for 
first time computer users and for mum and dad 

"Т didnt jump up and down when I saw the 
machine but with Alan Michael 
Sugar behind it..." 

Alternatives full price offshoot 
Again Again is to make a debut 
foray into PCs with a new game 
after Christmas. Inevitably perhaps, 
its a flight simulation (Operation 
Hormuz). Hulley reasons that the 
opportunities for releasing good ої 
arcade games will be limited. "The 
IBM market isn't ready for that." 

Those software houses preferring 
to play their cards close (ie. all of 
them) are saying that they will do 
their utmost to get the best out of 
the machine (etc. etc.). US Gold 
supremo Geoff Brown envisages 
the PC market opening up here. "It's the biggest 
format in the States,” he said. And that counts for 
something since Gold is apparently having a good 
time of it over there with its Brit games. 

Gold of course has four of its titles bundled with 
the PC200 so its hardly surprising that Brown 
fully expects Amstrad to pull it off. 

And while Gold is creaming it in the States 
Electronic Arts is furtively hoping for the PC to 
make its mark here. US software houses top brass 
have already filled their pockets with the riches of 
PC gamers Stateside and it doesnt take much to 





url 





00200 
Amstrad's marketing clout 
Mammoth US market for PC software 


Expandability 
Good value - for a PC 


and cons 


Poor value next to ST/Amiga 
Four-colour graphics 
Expandability is limited 



























Ф PC 200: Up against ST and Amiga? 


bung those games Europe's way. 

EA's European operations director 
Mark Lewis enthuses: "We've been marketing PC 
games here since we started. But I've always 
thought that the PC user is one who wants to use 
the machine for a whole variety of things. 

If you're a user you want 
entertainment as well as the 
ability to create. I suspect a 
lot of people will also use it 
for word processing and will 
have a database." 

Lewis admits that the 
machine's colour capabilities 
will prove an obstacle but he's 
impressed with speed capa- 
bility. "Chuck Yeager is faster 
on the IBM than on Com- 
modore or Apple." 


Lewis: EA has traditionally 
supported PCs 


Colouring the issue 


Many are reserving judgment on the machine 
until they've actually seen it (which seems fairly 
sensible). Surprisingly, Ocean's boffins have yet to 
poke around inside the Pro's belly. 

The firm's software development manager Gary 
Bracey is quick to point out that Ocean has been 
churning out PC games regularly for the past 12 
months. "It would be nice to see the PC games 
area opening up. It needs to be more widespread 
and if this is the way to do it then fine." 

On the colour capabilities he observes: "If the 
resolution is good then we can do nice things 
with it. Four colours is fine." 

Its only fair to stress that Amstrad won't be 
Pitching this as a games machine solus. It will be 
pitched as the ideal home computer for the whole 
family. Which isn't a million miles away from what 
the CPC was supposed to be. 

But its appeal to the 25 to 45 age group is likely 
to be strong. It's easy to imagine many of them 
used to IBMs at work, wanting one for the home, 
and appreciating that younger members of the 
family can get some kicks out of it. 

Its those younger members who the games 
publishers are watching closely. And their tastes 
arent likely to differ enormously from other 16-bit 
counterparts. 





NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS + E 




























Thanks for 
the memory 


Andy Onions 
Carrier Command 








T/Amiga 










Carrier Command, programmed by Real- 
time Graphics, is a technical tour-de- 
force with a complete game universe — 
islands, buildings, ships, aircraft — 
depicted in fast, smoothly animated, 
solid-filled 3D. With Starglider II, it sets 
new standards for 16-bit entertainment. 

But the company's roots are in 8-bit 
programming and it continues to pro- 
duce excellent 8-bit software. Program- 
mer Andy Onions is well placed, then, to 
discuss the differences. 

"The main thing is that the 16-bit 
machines give you masses of memory. 
This means you can'be very sloppy and 
write code that just grows and grows 
Also, you can write code a lot faster on 
16-bits because you don't have to be as 
careful with memory. 

"However, the demand is for better 
graphics, and graphics eat up memory. 
With all that memory it would take you 
years to fill it with code, but you can fill 
it quickly with graphics. 

"Next, the 16-bit machines give you 





























© Carrier Command - "ST version is a shade faster" 


very powerful processors. But as soon as 
you start dragging large chunks of mem- 
ory around, as“you do with graphics, you 
lose the power you just gained. For 
example, the Spectrum display screen is 
about 6K, the C64 about 8 or 9K, the PC 
about 16K in CGA, but the ST and 
Amiga are 32K." 

Surely the Amiga's dedicated graphic 
processors come in handy here? Appar- 
ently not: "From our experience on both 
the ST and Amiga versions of Carrier 
Command, the Amiga's dedicated hard- 
ware turned out not to be as much use 
as you might think. The blitter needs so 
much information in setting it up for use 
that the overhead negates any speed 
advantage. In fact, the ST version of 
Carrier Command is a shade faster than 
the Amiga on graphics." 




















ы. 
6 "Amiga hardware is not as much use as you might think” 














Upwardly mobile 
programming 





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The first generation of microcomputers - 
Apples, Commodores, Sinclairs, etc - now 
collectively known as 8-bit systems, used 
different microprocessors but had many 
things in common. Not least, they were 
slow and short on memory. 

The upshot of those limitations was that 
software had to be written in machine 
code, both for speed and because machine 
code programs take up less space than 
those in any other language. Secondly, and 
also for reasons of space, programmers 
learned to squeeze their programs into 
every available byte of memory. 

Machine coders would spend hours in 
search of ways to reduce a section of code 
by a mere one or two bytes or a handful of 
clock cycles - savings of precious thou- 


Great expectations 


Jez San 
Amiga/ST * Starglider I & II 


The original Starglider was one of the first 
programs to exploit the power of the 16-bit 
machines, and undoubtedly helped to sell a 
lot of Atari STs. And it's a measure of how 
far 16-bit programming has developed that. 
Starglider II makes its predecessor look 
positively feeble. 

After early work on the ST, Jez San 
switched to the Amiga, and now has to be 
considered one of the leading programmers 
on these two 16-bit superstars. 

"Perhaps the fundamental thing is that 
people expect more out of the 16-bit 
machines and sometimes they arent capa- 
ble of delivering. For example, some of the 
8-bit machines are much better at scrolling 
graphics. 

"Where the 16-bit systems do score is in 
the maths — with builtin multiply and 
divide instructiorfs they are far better at 3D 
graphics, which is what we specialise in. 

"There are problems with memory on the 


sandths of a second 

The second generation - the PC-compati- 
bles, Atari STs and Commodore Amigas — 
feature much more powerful processors, 
and have large memories, typically 
between 512K and 2Mb of RAM. Not unnat- 
urally, buyers of these machines expected 
life to be easier. All that memory looked like 
riches beyond dreams, and why learn 
machine code now when these superfast 
computers could turn in machine code per- 
formance from “easy” languages like C? 

But that “machine code performance” 
was only when viewed in comparison to 
the older 8-bit computers. Programmers 
could only get away with the easy 
approach so long as the public was happy 
with 8-bit performance from their 16-bit 
computers. Of course, they weren't happy 
for long. And when the first genuine 
machine code programs for the new 
machines arrived, the game was up. 

Especially in games. Programming teams 
like Argonaut and Realtime, with games 
like the Stargliders and Carrier Command, 
have begun to use the power of the new 
machines to create worlds in 3D, smoothly 
animated yet with lightning-fast action. 
The unimaginative conversions of old 8-bit 
product now look very humble indeed. 

So in a sense, programmers are back 
where they started, squeezing their code to 
save time and memory. And when the day 
arrives that we all have the equivalent of a 





new machines. While 64K on the 8-bit 
machines was plenty, 512K on 16-bit 
machines often isn't enough. Sound effects 
take up large amounts of memory - the 
soundtrack on Starglider II is about 450K. 
On good 16-bit games you're usually talking 
about 50K of code, 200K of graphics and 
200K of sound but we could easily fill up 
more memory with graphics and sound . 

"Апа things like expansion RAM on the 
Amiga, and machines like the ST 1040 and 
Mega STs don't help because you have to 
write for standard hardware, and that 
means 512K. 


"What would be a help is faster access to 
peripherals. That is much more important. 





OStarglider Il - “the soundtrack is about 450K” 





EN NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS 








Finding the right tools for the job. 


One thing all programmers have in com- 
mon is the need for good development 
tools, and naturally the professionals want 
the best. A strong contender for that acco- 
lade must be one of the industry's best- 
kept secrets: PDS, the Programmer's 
Development System. Although extensive- 
ly used by the major programmers, few 
outside the ranks of the professionals will 
have heard of it. 

"There are now about 250 users of 8-bit 
PDS, and we've got about 20 beta testers 
of the 68000 system," says author, develop- 
er and publisher of PDS, Andrew Glaister. 

That list of PDS users reads like a Who's 
Who of British programming: Telecomsoft, 
Virgin, Electronic Arts, Ultimate/Rare, Jez 
San, Realtime, and Archer MacLean are all 
PDS users. Among the programs devel- 
oped using PDS are various versions of 
Elite, Starglider, Star Wars and Empire 
Strikes Back, Tiger Road, Barbarian, Last 
Ninja and Afterburner. 

It is a combined hardware/software sys- 
tem running on an the PC. It comprises an 
interface board providing two ports, and 


Cray on our desktop, with gigabytes of 
memory and TV-quality graphics, you can 
expect one programmer to turn to another 
and say, “If we could just shave a few mil- 
liseconds off this routine...” 


А BIT BAFFLED? 
If you find talk of 8-bit and 16-bit sys- 
tems confusing, have patience. Watch 
for a full explanation in Learning Curve, 
our guide for beginners, in the next few 
weeks. 


than more memory - although 2Mb of RAM 
would be nice. But when we find a way of 
filling 2Mb we'd want more. 

"Really fast disk drives would allow us to 
use disk space as virtual memory, and then 
your available memory becomes the capac- 
ity of the drive. Optical disks [with capaci- 
ties of thousands of megabytes] look inter- 
esting in this respect." 

San also dispels the myth of the the Ami- 
ga's specialist hardware for graphics. "The 
Amiga hardware is not really suited to 3D 
work. It's better for handling sprites and 
windows - incredibly useful for those sorts 
of things - but really you dont see much 
difference in ST and Amiga graphics. The 
good thing about the Amiga is that the 
hardware is completely standard. Blitters 
on STs are great, but because they're not 
there on all STs, they don't get used. ' 

What about the PC? "One problem with 
the PC standard is that it isn't really a stan- 
dard. For example, on Starglider П, we're 
forced to support five screen modes - 
CGA, EGA, VGA, Tandy and Hercules. But 
as the better graphics standards like EGA 
and VGA become more established we 
definitely expect the PC to become a major 
market." 





the software and manuals. In addition, you 
need an interface for the target machine. 
The system costs £500, and a further £50 
for each machine interface. 

Very expensive compared to a copy of 
Devpac, say, but Glaister says cheerfully, 
"It pays for itself after the first project 
because it can halve your development 
time." 

The software includes а ful 
assembler/disassembler for the target 
machine (either Z80 or 6502), memory 
monitor and a graphics editor. The 8-bit 
version is blisteringly fast: on a 386-based 
PC, it will assemble 1Mb of source code in 
about 2 seconds, and transfer of the object 
code varies according to the target 
machine but on a Spectrum it's about 20K 
per second. 

Using PDS, you can write your Spectrum 
program in Z80 assembler (on the PC), 
design the graphics (also on the PC), then 
assemble, link, and download your pro- 
gram to the Spectrum. Now you can run 
your program while the PC acts as a moni- 
tor, allowing you to examine registers, set 


breakpoints, and generally control execu- 
tion of the program. If there are any prob- 
lems, you can edit, reassemble and down- 
load again very quickly. 

The advantage of PDS is that all your 
software tools are integrated into a single 
system, and controlling the target machine 
from a separate development system 
saves a lot of time since you're not having 
to switch constantly between develop- 
ment tools and the program under devel- 
opment. Both run simultaneously. 

But why the PC? Andy Onions, of Real- 
time, makes the point: "Developing for the 
ST and Amiga is only practical with a hard 
disk, but they are very expensive on those 
machines — you're talking about £700. On 
the PC, you can get a hard disk with con- 
troller for about £175. АП of the utility soft- 
ware you need is widely available for the 
PC, and it's all cheap. You also have a very 
reliable system." 

And Glaister says, "Since we've had PDS 
on the PC we've had no complaints, and 
nobody's every questioned it. I love the PC 
- the new 386 machines are the most pow- 
erful computers available and VGA graph- 
ics allow you to develop for anything, even 
the Amiga." 





The power of the PC 


PC-compatibles are still considered a bit 
of a loser when it comes to games, but it 
can boast some outstanding examples, 
not least Incentive Software's Freescape 
series. The first instalments — Driller and 
Dark Side — were two of the best games 
ever on the PC and good enough to stand 
comparison with product on 
any machine. 

Chris Andrew, of Incen- 
tive's software team Major 
Developments, talks about 
some of the differences in 
moving from 8-bit to 16-bit 
programming: 'I like pro- 
gramming on the PC because 
it's so powerful. 

"Moving from Z80 systems 
like the Spectrum апа 
Amstrad to the PC wasnt 
very difficult. You do find this 
thing where Z80 program- 
mers move to the 8086, and 
6502 programmers go to the 
68000 but I'm not sure why that's so. I find 
that any machine code language is quite 
easy — you just have to sit down and learn 
it. 

The 8086 can be a bit of a pain because 
the memory is divided into 64K segments. 
You end up having to do your program in 
segments and then link them together, 
but you have to be very careful about 
where your segment pointers are point- 
ing. In Driller we had a couple of obscure 


bugs because of that." 

Graphically, the PC is always looked 
down on because of its most common 
standard, the four-colour CGA mode, but 
the increasingly-common EGA - with 16 
colours from a palette of 64 — is as good as 
most ST and Amiga displays, and the next 
standard, VGA, outperforms even the 
Amiga with 256,000 colours and a much 
higher resolution. 


ГЕТ] ЕСО 10% 


O PC Dark Side - “graphics get complicated when you move to EGA” 


Andrew says, "Programming graphics 
gets complicated when you move to EGA 
because of the way the screen memory is 
mapped, but CGA is relatively easy. You 
just have to make the best of what you've 
got." 

And he finds some of the PC's limita- 
tions comfortable to live with: "I don't like 
programming sound anyway, so I quite 
like the PC because it means I don't have 
to do very much." 











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ENTERTAINMENT 


PREVIEW 








“Although we're moving away from all-text stories, everything you've come to know and love about 
interactive fiction will still be there. We are not compromising on quality, richness or depth in any way. 
What we are doing is enhancing these features with graphics that exhibit the same attention to quality 


and detail as our prose. A new technology is here and we're making full use of it.” 
Infocom statement of intent 





Infocom goes graphic 





‘A THOUSAND WORDS IS WORTH A 





PICTURE’ MIGHT HAVE BEEN 





INFOCOM'S MOTTO, BUT NOW THE 





MASTERS OF ADVENTURE SAY YOU 





CAN HAVE BOTH. IS THIS HERESY? 





A SULLEN BOW TO PUBLIC 





DEMAND? OR THE DAWN OF A 





NEW ERA? PETER WORLOCK 





INVESTIGATES ... 





Infocom, the one-time masters of computer 
adventure, have not had a great 12 months. Pres- 
sured from all sides by the public demand for 
graphics, and the increasing popularity of animat- 
ed role-playing games, the US company looked 
less and less confident as the year wore on. 

Whereas Infocom games used to be rare events, 
inevitably greeted by critical acclaim and public 
clamour, the last half-dozen releases came thick 
and fast. Some fans felt that the quality had 
declined as productivity had risen, others that the 
quality was as high as ever but no longer quite 
good enough. And there was an air of despera- 
tion about some moves like the ill-advised (and, in 
this country, never-to-be-seen) InfoComics with 
their meagre storylines and laughable graphics. 

Other developments, including the role-playing 
and self-mapping features of Beyond Zork 
received a lukewarm "thumbs up", but failed to 
recapture the excitement of old. 

Now the company is poised to enter a new 
phase, with a range of products that it hopes will 
give the ailing old-timer a new lease of life. The 
new games have one thing in common: graphics. 

Most radical of the new games is BattleTech 


w gale tears at you, biting deep 
within, and you know that if you 
don't make landfall soon you'll alt 
һе deod. You ore John Blackthorne, 
Pilot-tajor of a deod fleet: one 
ship left out of five, eight and 
twenty men out of one hundred and 
seven, ond only ten of those can 














lows past in an angry torrent 


[The wheel dominates the quar terdeck 
tt is turned straight and free to 
turn nov. 


The ship heels in a sudden squall, 


which, uncontrolled, begins 
to tum to port 


STRAIGHTEN THE UMEEL] 


© Shogun - lots of fighting and a bit of love interest! 


(see below), Infocom’ first real role-playing game, 
but the RPG theme carries forward into other 
products, notably Journey, which Infocom says is 
“a whole new realm of entertainment software” 
called role-play chronicles (the company hasn't 
yet lost it's yen for slightly pretentious market- 
ing) 

Hardened readers will recognise little new in 
the story line: Tag, Praxix, Bergon, Esher and 
Minar head off on a quest for the “revered wis- 
dom of the great wizard Astrix", exploring 
unknown lands and underground caves, and solv- 
ing puzzles. 

Written by Zork co-author Marc Blank, Journey 
is a more-or-less straight merging of the tradition- 





al Infocom text adventure with elements of role- 
playing games. The graphics in the game, in the 
form of Magnetic Scrolls’ illustrations rather than 
the animated views of games like The Bard's 
Tale and DungeonMaster, look excellent, but the 
most that can be said at this stage is that if it 
works it should be great, “but the Journey, 
Grasshopper, is fraught with danger” 

Much closer to the traditional adventure format 
is Shogun, written by second Zork co-author Dave 
Lebling. This is the second game license of James 
Clavell's best-seller (Virgin produced an arcade- 
adventure of the book a couple of years ago), and 
the story will be familiar to anyone who has read 
the book, watched the TV mini-series, rented the 











Role-reversal 





On paper, at least, the new game will set 
any RPG fan's fingers twitching: four million 
locations, animated graphics in projected 3D 
style, together with masses of combat and 
the standard RPG features of developing char- 
acters and the ability to acquire new skills 


As if the switch to graphics wasn't shocking 
enough, heading up the list of forthcoming 
releases is Infocom's first non-adventure 
game. The officially licensed version of 
FASA's BattleTech system is a true computer 
role-playing game in which you play Battle- 
Mech rookie Jason Youngblood. Your aim is 
to survive long enough to save the universe 
from the deadly Kurita warriors. 


and equipment. 

Infocom claims it will also boast a number 
of innovations, including the unlikely-sound- 
ing "emotive out-take". At various points in 
the game, the screen zooms in to show the 
emotional reactions of characters to various 
happenings. 

Could this be the first three-Kleenex com- 

















puter game? 
NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS + 





БЕНЕН PREVIEW 


















video or played the Virgin game. 

The game promises to have you “matching wits 
with tyrannical Japanese aristocrats and fighting 
off attacks by Ninja assassins", with a bit of love 
interest thrown in for good measure. 

Again, there are illustrations, this time in “tradi- 
tional 16th century Japanese style", and Media- 
genic claims these are “the most outstanding that 
Infocom has created to date”. It would be churlish 
to point out that this is no great recommendation, 
and, in fact, the 

And on the question of churlish, one hesitates 
to comment upon the fourth item on the menu 
Zork Zero. In temporal terms, Infocom calls this 
the prequel to the Zork Trilogy, but in gaming 
terms it's a development of the Beyond Zork late- 
comer. 

Naturally, the action takes place in Quendor and 
promises to explain many of the questions that 
have intrigued Zorkers for years, such as where 
did grues come from? 

Written by Steve “Leather Goddesses” Meret- 
zky, Zork Zero is a text-and-puzzles adventure of 
the old school, but again Infocom has felt obliged 
to bolt on a few bells and whistles. There is the 
self-mapping feature of Beyond Zork and a new 
parser, but also the iffy idea of little graphical 
puzzles such as Peggleboz, the Tower of Bozbar 
and Double Fanucci 

Cynical readers may imagine they hear the dis- 








ЕЕЕ: | 


% Journey - a touch of the Tolkeins 


tant sound of a near-dead horse being flogged, 
which might be taking things a bit far. But Zork 
Zero does smack of the Hollywood syndrome: if in 
doubt, remake an oldie. What can we expect 
next: Son of Zork? Rambo Hills Cop Academy XII 
goes to Zork? Digging so deep into its past does 
n't bode well for a company struggling to find its 
way into the future 

Zork Zero apart, however, the new line-up looks 
like a bold attempt to carry Infocom into a new 
era, while BattleTech is a radical departure and 
certainly the most exciting prospect. The merging 
of Infocom's classy adventures with a first-class 
RPG and combat system could take the games 
market by storm 


nean the highest point of the pass, 
od hat it reiten lcd ы) 
КЕСЕГІ? av rae м fo 
БУДА) er o de мейе. ome he sale | 
das revealed an ancient ravine feadiag wp the 
side of the mountain Mere 


line 
Vau fid yoursel! on the slopes of Mot Года, te 7 
tallest peak tn the Flathead бердін. А ату P 
pom tin 


leads almost straight 
(ші als sta 


D 





© Zork Zero - going back to mah roots.. 


Release Schedule 


PC Amiga C128 
Zork Zero 02/89 03/89 04/89 


Journey 02/89 03/89 05/89 
Shogun 01/89 03/89 06/89 
Battletech 11/88 па па 


INCREDIBLE SHRINKING SPHERE 


ot from the ST version. 
due out on the Amiga, Spectrum, CPC & C64. 


SUPERMAN 


TYNESOFT 
Marvel Comics' second superhero makes it onto the silicon 


@ Screensh 
@ Also 


him through 12 missions featuring the canon-throwing 


@ Also due out on Amiga, PC, Spectrum, CPC & C64. 


THE CHAMP 
LINEL 


the theme tune from Rocky accompanies your long haul to 


€ Also due ош on the ST & C64. 


RETURN OF THE JEDI 


DOMARK 

Following on from Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, but 
marking a departure from their wire-frame graphics, 
comes the final release of the trilogy where you're up 
against the Imperial Deathstar. Fly speederbikes, Scout 
Walkers and Millenium Falcons as you evade Imperial 
Stormtroopers, Tie Fighters and Cruisers in your attempt 
to take out the Death Star and escape before it takes you 
with it too. 

© Screenshot from the Spectrum version. 

@ Also due out on the ST, Amiga, CPC & C64. 


GRAND PRIX CIRCUIT 


ACCOLADE 

Drive a Formula One racer around 8 international circuits 
after choosing from three car configurations. You select the 
best design for each specific track and race against 15 
other drivers with varying styles. Pit stops and tyre 
changes add to the realism, as do tunnel sequences where 
you're driving blind. 

© Screenshot from the PC version. 

© Also due ош on the C64. 





NEUROMANCER 


5 
e 
E 


Based on the novel by Bill Gibson which won just about. 
every Sci-Fi award possible, comes Cyberpunk atmospher- 
ics and a fully-digitised sound track by Devo to set you in 
a 21st century Japan of hi-tech urban decay. You use your 
skills as a hacker to break into heavily protected govern- 


an arm: 
he wipes Тһе Dar. Hi 
Teeth are а mebuork оі 
Rast European steel а 











Ea * NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS 











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Easy PCs 


MS-DOS MAY BE THE MOST WIDELY 
USED OPERATING SYSTEM IN THE | 
WORLD — BUT NO-ONE SAID IT WAS 
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LOCK LOOKS AT THREE PACKAGES 
THAT SHOULD EASE THE PAIN. 




















“User-friendly” has been one of the most popular 
concepts in computing for the past few years. 
Unfortunately, MS-DOS pre-dates that popularity 
by quite a margin. Not to put too fine a point on 
it, MS-DOS can be downright hostile with its 
cryptic command syntax and odd abbreviations. 

No surprise, then, that WIMP (Windows, Icons, 
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nately, these front-ends have their own problems; 
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time you turn on your РС. 

A better bet are compromise systems that pro- 
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ter-known such systems are the Norton Com- 
mander, and Tree86, and both have just been 
upgraded and enhanced. 


THE NORTON COMMANDER 


Peter N 








Peter Norton is probably better known for the 
Norton Utilities, but Commander has long been 
the leading DOS front-end system for PCs. Now in 
version 2.0, it offers pull-down menus, improved 
file browsing, and support for EGA and VGA dis- 
plays, as well as being generally faster and more 
functional. 

Installation is simplicity itself: copy all the files 
to a working disk, and then enter NC, or adjust 
your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Commander loads into 
its basic screen which consists of one or two disk 
directory windows. 

From here, you can perform most DOS func- 
tions, such as copying, renaming and deleting 
files either by use of the drop-down menus, or 
from the function key pad. Commander can be 
mouse-driven, or you can use the PC's cursor clus- 
ter to emulate mouse control, or you can use the 
keyboard shortcuts provided. 

Having twin directories makes Commander par- 
ticularly enjoyable to use, since you see both the 


origin and target disks. Further, you can mark 
multiple files for copying and deleting in a single 
action - much easier and safer than using the 
DOS wildcard facility. 

This is fine so far as it goes, but Commander 
goes much further. For example, the file browsing 
utility is more useful than DOSs TYPE command 
Since it allows you to scroll forward and back 
through the file. Moreover, Commander has spe- 
cial options for viewing dBase and Lotus spread- 
sheet files. 

Actually editing your files is also easier because 
Commander provides a text editor. You can use 
your own favourite but Commanders is more than 
adequate for quick changes to existing files, or for 
creating batch files and the like. 

Finally, Commander gives you the ability to cre- 
ate a custom menu from which you can launch 
your most-used applications with a single key- 
press. The icing on the cake is the added bonus of 
tying documents to their applications and launch- 








EPIS GUTRES SUJET DR DE» 
Бы, Ее Еле Ен Б. ILS 
ing those from the directory screens. For exam- 
ple, if you have a document file LETTER.DOC cre- 
ated in Wordstar, Commander lets you choose 
LETTER.DOC from the directory, and when you 
hit RETURN the PC loads Wordstar and LET- 
TER.DOC ready for editing. 

The documentation is a model of clarity, clearly 
written, well-designed and with copious use of 
sample screens from the program. In addition, 
there's a quick guide which is basically a pictorial 
reference to Commander ~ rather superfluous but 
where documentation is concerned, better too 
much than too little, I suppose. 


TREE86 





Tree86, from the lesser-known David Aldridge, 
sets out to do what Commander does – to provide 
an easier, menu-driven front-end to DOS. Unfortu- 
nately, it doesn't succeed nearly as well 

As its name suggests, the program shows disk 
directories in the form of a tree, tracing the 
branch-like structure of sub-directories and files 
This clearly shows the structure of your directo- 
ries, but it can be wasteful of space, and the 
result is that Tree86 can display only one directo- 
ту at a time, as opposed to Commander's two 
(Commander provides the tree display as an 
option). 


fact that Tree86 devotes about a quarter of the 
screen to a permanent display of disk and 
machine status. Although it is occasionally useful 
to know the free space on the disk, the numbers 
and kinds of files, and how much memory you 
have available in the PC, you certainly don't need 
the information all the time. With Tree86, you 
have no choice. 


mouse; if you don't have one available, you're 
reduced to using some fairly cryptic single-key 
commands, which isn't as satisfactory as Com- 
manders cursor-key alternative. 


rename and delete files, Tree86 adds little more. 
There is a file-browser but this is barely more 
functional than TYPE (you cant scroll backwards), 
although it does allow you to switch between 
ASCII and hex displays. Finally, you can run PC 
applications from within the program but, again, 
in more limited fashion than Commander pro- 
vides. For example, Tree86 provides no editor, 
you have to bring your own, and while it can 
automatically load a document, you have to allow 
for this by amending a batch file outside of 
Tree86 — not a task to endear the package to PC 
novices. 


ished feel to it, an impression only reinforced by 
the manual which provides only the briefest cov- 
erage of Tree865 features. 


Verdict 

In this two-sided contest, Commander must be 
considered an outright winner. Professionally pre- 
sented, and with a host of extra features, it leaves 
Tree86 for dead. 


struggling to come to terms with DOS, and Com- 
mander might find a particularly warm welcome. 
in offices where it should allow occasional users 
of company PCs to get to grips with the machines 
a lot more quickly and easily. 


stage, there isnt really much reason to look at 
something like Commander. A better bet would 
be а DOS management program like PC Tools 
Deluxe which provides all the facilities (except. 
mouse control) of both Commander and the Nor- 
ton Utilities in one powerful package. 


П 
даі: 12 Ма. | 
lites: 118,31 





The shortage of space is exacerbated by the 


The program is designed to be used with a 


In addition to the usual DOS commands to copy, 


Mr Aldridge's package generally has an unfin- 


It can be highly recommended for beginners 


However, once you're beyond the beginner's 





HELPME 
e Products Inc: 
T 





Perhaps the single biggest advan- 
tage of the PC system is its flexibili- 
ty. Video displays, memory capacity 


and disk storage are all customis- 
able, and the vast library of MS-DOS 
software is unparalleled. You can 
literally turn a PC into the kind of 
computer you want. 

However, that flexibility also pro- 


vides limitless opportunities for 
conflicts and incompatibilities in 


hardware and software, and prob- 
lems like that can bé exceedingly 
difficult to fathom. Which makes a 
good case for HelpMe, one of a new 
batch of utility programs from CSPI. 

HelpMe is the disk-based equiva- 
lent of having a PC technician at 
your beck and call, providing more 
than 300 diagnostic tests for PC 
hardware and software. Uses range 
from helping a novice set up MS- 
DOS by automatically configuring 
CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT 
files, through to highly technical 
analysis of the hardware status 
without the need to remove the 


PC's cover and dig around inside. 
In fact, if theres anything you 
want to know about the set-up of 
your PC, HelpMe can probably tell 
you. Want to know the state of file- 
fragmentation on your hard disk? 
No problem. Easy. How about a list 
of interrupt requests and their 
memory locations? Child's play. 
Naturally, the key question is, 
how often do you need to know 
these things? For corporate DP 
managers the answer is probably, 
all the time. For the computer 
enthusiast with a PC at home the 
answer is probably, hardly ever. 





But HelpMe is a bit like insurance. 
When everything's going fine you'll 
resent the premiums, but when you 
need it, it's worth almost any price. 
Imagine lugging your PC all the 
way into a repair shop, only to find 
that HelpMe could have told you 
your new display card was the 
cause of the problem! 

It's easy to install and use, and 
seems to work well (hard to say — 
there's nothing wrong with my PC, 
he said smugly). Casual PC users 
could probably live without it, but if 
you absolutely have to have work- 
ing PCs, you should have HelpMe. 











NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS + 





"Nr 
B E 


қанаты CNS O AA 





obvious when you think about it. 
need devices like keyboards (and 





CAN BE A DAUNTING EXPERI 
CHANCES ARE, YOU'RE NOT S 
WHAT IT CAN DO. AND TO CAP IT 
ALL, ONCE YOU'VE BOUGHT YOUR 
> 3 printers to com 
MACHINE, YOU FIND YOUR PROB- — Pesce wih 
LEMS ARE ONLY JUST BEGINNING. Y% 
— — — Software is 
YOU NEED THE EXPRESS GUIDE the stuff that 
TO LIVING WITH A COMPUTER. 


makes computers 
WEEK BY WEEK, PETER WORLOCK 





providing information for it to 
work with, The com- 
puter needs 
devices like 
monitors and 











work, and software 
equals programs 
Programs are 
simply lists of 
instructions 
which tell the 
computer how 






JARGON. 


When I first became interested іп microcomputers tO perform a 
— in the days of the UK101, Nascom, Pet, Apple П, Certain task 
and the amazing Exidy Sorcerer (the Amiga of its (cookery 
day) – I was an impoverished junior reporter оп а  recipes, 


instructions for 
building model 
airplanes, and 
knitting patterns 
are all examples 
of programs for 
people). Without a 
program, the com: 
puter is unable to do 
anything 

Most software is external 
to the machine and comes on 
tape or disk - games, graphics 
programs, word processors etc, 


small weekly newspaper. Owning one of these 
magnificent machines was only a dream, but I 
bought all the com- 
puter magazines (all 
STET EO ЯНА TRAM ее of them) every 

month, barely under- 

standing a tenth of 
Any particular concepts or bits of | what I was reading 
jargon you don't understand? | and learning more 
Anything you always wanted to | from the adverts than 


know but were too embarrassed | ! did from the articles 
When the dream 


came true and I final. 
ly bought my first 
computer, I at least 
understood most of 
the jargon and had a 





to ask? Why not write to: First 
Timers, New Computer Express, 4 
Queen Street, Bath, BA1 1EJ. No 
question too dumb, no subject too 
simple, and no condescending 


However, it is apparent that sc 





Tp | fair idea of what I 
EUH could do with the Would be unable to read the application programs all, 
БІН from the tape or disk, so all computers have more 


For most people today, a two-year wait for a 
computer is unlikely and unnecessary, but it 
means that many first-time buyers get their com- 
puters home without knowing the first thing 
about them. Assembling the various bits is usual- 
ly easy, but as soon as you turn on the machine 
you're lost. 

Dont panic. 

The first problem for many beginners is under- 
standing the difference between hardware and 
software. So 

Hardware is the stuff that hurts if you drop it on 
your fingers. Your computer will consist of one or 
more bits of hardware: an Amstrad PC, for exam- 
ple, has the system unit, the keyboard, and the 
monitor; older machines like the Spectrum and 
Commodore 64 have the system unit and key- 
board combined into a single box. 

The system unit is the ‘brain’ of the computer, 
the bit that does all the work. The other pieces of 
hardware, including the monitor, printers, disk 
drives, and so on, are usually referred to as 
‘peripherals’, simply because they're peripheral to 
the system unit. 

Peripherals are necessary for reasons that are 


only have a minimal amount of 


Technobabble 


The subject of memory is one of 
the more jargon-ridden areas of 
computing, and nothing marks you 
down as a novice more than using 
the jargon incorrectly. Saying 
things like, “My computer has a lot 
of K," when you mean it has a 
large memory is like saying, “My 
car has a lot of MPH” when you 
mean it's quite fast. Sure to set the 
experts sniggering! 

Computer memory comes in two 
kinds, RAM and ROM. ROM is non- 
volatile - its contents are perma- 


sticks and mice) to communicate with 
the computer: issuing commands, and 


must be built in to the computer, otherwise it 


or less of this built-in software. Machines like the 
ST, Amiga, Amstrad PCW, and PC-compatibles 


You 
joy- 


© Getting your computer home is only the start. 


of your problems 


are all supplied in this way. These 
kinds of programs are usually called applications. 


ome programs 


this software, 


nently fixed and turning off the 
computer's power has no effect on 
it. For this reason, ROM is used to 
hold the computer's built-in soft- 
ware. But it also means that the 
contents are unchangeable - obvi- 
ously no use for temporary infor- 
mation and programs that you 
dont want permanently in the 
machine. 

RAM is the temporary workspace 
where the computer holds pro- 
grams and the information it is 
working on. RAM needs a constant 





















enough to be able to read and 
execute other programs from the 
disk drive, particularly a special 
program called the operating 
system. Older machines like the 
Spectrum, Commodore 64, and 
BBC Micro have much 
more built-in soft- 
ware, including 
entire versions of 
the Basic pro- 
gramming lan- 
guage, and the 
operating system 
The operating 
system provides 
а general set of 
housekeeping 
programs 
which tell the 
computer 
how to read 
the keyboard, 
how to dis- 
play informa: 
tion on the 
monitor, and 
how to store 
data on disk or 
tape. To do 
anything more 
complex — in 
other words, to 
do the things you bought the 
computer for – you must 
acquire a specialist program 
and load it into the machine. 


For now, its 
enough to understand 
these differences: hard- 


ware is the physical stuff, 


software is programs, and programs come 
in two different kinds: operating systems, which 
the computer needs before it can do anything at 
and applications programs, which the com- 
puter needs before it can do anything useful. 

We'll talk about these and other topics in more 
detail in future articles. 


flow of electric current to work, so 
when you switch off the power, 
RAM is wiped clean. 

The basic unit of memory is the 
byte, a group of eight binary digits, 
or bits. The kilobyte, usually short- 
ened to K, is 1,024 bytes, not 1,000 
bytes, so a computer that has 512К 
of memory has 524,288 bytes of 
RAM. A megabyte is 1,024 kilo- 
bytes, so that the 512K computer 
has half a megabyte of RAM. 

















mW * NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS 


o 








+15% VAT = £59.95 


MGT's premier product. The disc interface f 
disc in seconds. The printer interface that & 
prints out ANY screen. Simple enough for af 
beginner, yet state of the art for the expert 

user. With all the Sinclair Interface 1 facilities 
and commands, the PLUS D will transform 
your 48K, 128K or + 2 Spectrum. 










3.5", 5.25", single or dual, for Spectrum, 

QL, BBC, Atari, PC - you name it, we sell it! 
Because you're buying direct from the 
manufacturer, you won't find better drives at 
a better price! Each drive has a built-in power 
supply and connection cable. 










DISC DRIVE EX-VAT УАТ INCL 
3.5" Single drive £ 86.91 £ 99.95 
3.5" Dual drive £165.17 £189.95 
5.25" Single drive — £130.39 £149.95 
5.25" Dual drive £217.35 £249.95 
3.5" & 5.25" Multi — £199.96 — £229.95 


Hobbyists! Call for prices on bare drives! 














SUPER SAVER 
PACKAGE 


£121.70 


+15% VAT = £139.95 


The PLUS D and 3.5" DSDD Drive. All you 
need to turn your Spectrum into a powerful 
modern disc-based computer! Load 48K in 
3.5 Seconds and 128K in just 10 seconds 
“Best Buy”... Your Sinclair. “Another 
Amstrad Crusher" ... Crash. 


+15% VAT = £16.95 
N 


Another winner 

from MGT. A two-way 07 
connector with a switch that lets even 
incompatible interfaces work together! The 


TwoFace also has a built-in joystick interface 
Opus/Beta/Microdrive users can now transfer 
all files to PLUS D. The ultimate in Spectrum 
gadgetry! 





that snapshots all your cassette software to. NS. 


Sa 


= = "if a product is faulty, but also if you need help in installation or if 














It's time to talk about quality of service. Lots of companies are 
advertising lots of products at excellent prices. But we believe that 
our customers deserve more than that. We believe that you have 
the right to demand an honest, in-depth appraisal of a product's 
strengths and weaknesses before you buy. We believe you should 
get a description in terms that you can understand and perhaps an 
expert comparison with rival products. And if you decide to buy, 
you need to be assured of first-class service afterwards. Not just 


you simply come up against a problem that stumps you. 


At MGT we've got the time to talk to you. We only sell products 
that we like and use ourselves. We understand what we sell, and 
every one of our sales team is trained to help you, whether before 
you buy or after. And even if we don’t know the answer to your 
question, or if we don't stock the product you're looking for, we'll 
find out about it for you. 


And the time to talk can be almost any time. Our phone lines are 
open till 7p.m. Monday to Friday in case you want to call us after 
work — even after that, there's an answer-phone. Just leave a 
message and we'll call you back. 


It's time to talk to MGT first! 


MGT BRAND 3.5" 
DSDD DISCS 


MGT Name - MGT quality, with a lifetime 
guarantee! Sold individually or in plastic 
boxes of 10 with labels. 


The digitizer that has the competition on their 
knees! Capture images from any video 
camera or recorder and use the PLUS D to 





Ex-Vat WNat 
1 Disc £147 £ 169 Store them to disc for editing later with the 
10 Discs £13.00 £14.95 Animator 1. Has shading, high resolution and 
20 Discs £24.30 #2795 no distortion 


30 Discs £33.00 £37.95 





We also have a limited stock of the original 
Spectrum 128K Computer at £84.95 and a 
wide range of serious and games software. 
Call for details. 


DESK TOP 
PUBLISHING 


£32.87 


1 enclose a large SAE for more details of MGT products 





+15% VAT = £149.95 









































Printers to suit every pocket 

computer — from 9-pin to laser printers, 
normal or wide carriage. Free connection 
cable with every printer sold. 

The Star LC10 in mono or colour with paper- 
park and font-select buttons. 

The Citizen 120D — sold to 70% of UK 
schools, The new 180E — faster printing, font 
select, 2 year guarantee. 

Typical prices (inc. VAT) 


Star LC-10 £239.95 
Star LC-10 Colour £269.95 
Citizen 120D. £149.95 
Citizen 180E REY. £199.95 
Citizen MSP 15E (wide carriage)........£299.00 
Citizen HOP 40 (24- pin) 5499.00 
Citizen Overture 110+ £1499.00 
(laser printer running at 10 pages per minute = 900 CPS. 


with 12 months on- 





warranty) 


Ask for our detailed brochures on these and other 
printers in our range. 





£13.00 





+15% VAT 


£14.95 


The hacker's dream software. Break into any 
game and list the memory in Hex, Decimal, 
Ascii, or disassemble it instantly. All the PLUS 
D's snapshot features fully supported. Type in 
all the magazine pokes and even customise 
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Packages less than 1kg 52.00 
Standard Securicor £4.50 
Express nextday delivery £12.00 


(Subject to availability) 


| THE MGT GUARANTEE | 


1 year full guarantee on all our products. 
Simple repairs procedure - you send, we fix! 
No-quibble full cash refund on hardware if 
you're not satisfied within 14 days! 

















Name E. 
Ae = — M 

Finally, real DTP for the Spectrum! A word 

processor, graphics and page layout designer - 

all in one and supplied on disc. "Worth every 22 

nickel you'll рау for them" ... Your Sinclair. MGT DIRECT. 








Fax: (0 





reside, Phoenix Way, Swansea Enterprise Park, Swansea. 
791155. 















SYSTEM 3 


C64  £12.99cs, £14.99dk 
P 


Also on Spec. Due next year on ST, Amiga, PC 





When The Last Ninja finally appeared on the C64 
early last year everybody was amazed by its state- 
of-the-art, film-like visuals. TLN combined the beat- 
em-up and arcade adventure genres - а 
strange blend that actually worked. 
These factors, helped by a great deal of 
hype, catapulted TLN straight into the C64 
Charts, and it eventually achieved the num- 
ber one position. Unfortunately TLN had 
one major flaw - a lack of heart-pounding 


5 


115ІГІС 


HOLDING : 








tions) can perform those Ninja actions: punching, kick- 
ing, stabbing and slashing, to name but a few. In true 
Ninja tradition you're adaptable, manoeuvrable and can 
handle any weapon you stumble upon. 

During your quest for Kunitoki you'll encounter many 
of the dangers of modern day life, Items such as credit 
cards, hamburgers, muggers and policemen are all there 
to hinder (or help) your further progress. 

The game is divided into six 
multi-load levels (central park, downtown 
Manhattan, sewers, opium factory, office 
block and shogun's retreat). Each level 
contains its own dangers, pitfalls and puz- 
zles which have to be negotiated within a 
time-limit. 

Other additions to TLN come in 


action. Gameplay consisted of laboriously 
visiting each location (taking as long as the form of five lives (instead of one), joy- 
you liked) and either killing or collecting stick control improvements and a score 


something. Incredible audio-visuals could 
not hide this deficiency for long and resulted in many 
players just giving up. 

The Last Ninja ІІ has the same audio-visual quality as 
before, but now promises extended gameplay as well. 


M 


PIER 


© C64: One of Central Parks many hazards - a knife throwing juggler! 
6 Spec:(Main pic) A whole new meaning to lights, camera, action 


€ GAMEPLAY 
TLN2 places you in the role of Armakuni, hero of TLN 
and now master of the ancient ninja art. Unfortunately, 
you take the art too seriously, and while meditating one 
day, you manage to transport yourself through time and 
space, from your native 12th century Japan to 20th сеп- 
tury New York. This is just the start of your problems, as 
your arch enemy, Kunitoki, has also managed the transi- 
tion. So it's up te you (yet again!) to rid the world of the 
evil Kunitoki. 

As with TLN you are represented on-screen by an 
agile Ninja sprite, who (by different joystick combina- 





facility. 

€ GRAPHICS AND SOUND 
Graphically, TLN2 is even better than its predecessor, 
thanks to the artistic talents of Hugh Riley (graphic 
designer on both games). The animation, definition and 
colour of both backdrops and sprites is 
superb. The oriental-type soundtracks that 
accompany TLN2 are well crafted and add 
to the atmosphere of the game, but the lack 
of sound effects (unusual for a martial arts 
game) mutes the enjoyment factor gained 
when knocking-out an opponent. 
€ OTHER VERSIONS 
Spectrum TLN2 manages to hold its own 
against the C64 version, albeit with a 
monochrome display The CPC version 
should be available as you read this. 
€ EXPRESS VERDICT 
TLN was a hard act to follow, but TLN2 man- 
ages the task admirably. The state-of-the-art 
visuals are matched by tweaked gameplay, 
the boredom factor now gone. With six lev- 

els to complete before the final showdown with 
Kunitoki, long-term interest is assured. 

The only criticism concerns System 3's marketing of 
the product, TLN2 comes complete with cotton Ninjitsu 
mask, rubber Shiraken Star and pseudo-3D map. Unfor- 
tunately these little goodies add an extra three pounds to 
the asking price (estimated value being 28р) 

Despite the dubious merit of the extra goodies, TLN2 
is still one to add to your collection — especially if you 
сап coax your software dealer into selling you the game 
separately. 


VOOS 


VIRUS 


FIREBIRD 


Amiga + £19.99dk 
Also on ST, Spec 





Something wonderful has finally happened...the 
Amiga version of the state-of-the-art Archimedes 
graphics outing is up and running at last. 

@ VERSION UPDATE 

For those who don't already know, your mission is to fly an 
ultra-responsive hoverplane in solid 3D flight in a search 
for alien craft polluting a patchwork surface of fields and 
oceans. 

The Amiga's sound is a distinct improvement over the 
ST version - spot effects аге now in stereo and provide 
much greater atmosphere. Colliding with the sea produces 
the bubbling sound of your hoverplane sinking! 

In its vision, style and attention to detail, Virus sets the 
standard for moving graphics. Pity then that gameplay is 





@ You line up your hoverplane for a shot at this infectious Seeder sow- 
ing its red virus. The scanner top left shows your current position and 
the blips of enemy craft. 


rather repetitive. The Spectrum version can only be 
described as a distant relative of the 16-bit versions, bear 
ing only a laughable resemblance in all departments, 


ооо 
NIGHT RAIDER 


GREMLIN 


PC + £19.99dk 
Also on ST, Spec, CPC, C64 





After its release on all the other major formats, Night 
Raider finally makes it onto the PC. 
€ VERSION UPDATE 
Your task is to fly your Grumman Avenger, stationed on 
the aircraft carrier Ark Royal through enemy infested skies 
tof sink the notorious German Battleship Bismarck. 

With four views to choose from — the pilot's, engineer's, 
navigator's and rear gunner's, there's plenty to do along 





O Gotcher! Another Dornier goes down in flames (CGA PC). 





Мур + NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS 


Еле 2-2... REVIEWS CL 





the мау. The game is а combination of simulation, strategy 
and good old arcade action. 

The CGA graphics are just about adequate, while the 
EGA version is quite pretty. Sound is up to the usual PC 
standards - i.e. dismal. With an engine note that sounds 
like a fast-dripping tap, you might chose to turn the sound 
off altogether. 

The ST version has, not surprisingly, the best graphics, 
and mouse control is very handy for those action 
sequences. The 8-bit versions are rather less impressive 
but still good, while the PC version, with its poor graphics 
(in CGA mode) and awful sound is, alas, the worst of the 
bunch 


ооо 


SAVAGE 


FIREBIRD 


CPC  #8.99с5, £14,99dk 
Also on Spectrum 





Savage is an axe-wielding warrior who has to battle 
his way through dungeons overrun with all manner of 
evil creatures bent on his destruction. His aim is to 
escape the dungeons into Death Valley - but that's 
only the beginning... 

€ GAMEPLAY 

Right from the start Savage is tough - the swarms of 
attacking creatures are vicious and unpleasant, and it's 
going to take you quite a while to reach the end of the 
level and defeat the guardian. Do that, though, and you 
learn a password which will allow you to access Level 2. 

This is an altogether different proposition, as you race 
across a landscape seen through Savage's eyes and 
strewn with ghastly green monoliths. You have to avoid 
crashing into these at the same time as shooting the skulls 
hovering over the ground. 

Level 3 is different again. You control an eagle viewed 
side-on, and this time you are back at the castle, and try- 
ing to gain entry to rescue your beloved maiden who you 
were tricked into leaving imprisoned there. 


@ GRAPHICS AND SOUND 
The gameplay is upstaged by the graphics, which are 
amongst the prettiest and most colourful you will see on a 





0 Level One, and Savage faces attack from all sides. 


CPC. Animation and scrolling are good, as are the sound 
effects (you only get music at the start) 

€ EXPRESS VERDICT 

Savage is very pretty and offers three distinct game 
Styles. Against that, three levels isn't much, and the sheer 
difficully of the game right from the start is only half a solu- 
tion. It scores on initial appeal and variety, but whether the 
long-term interest is there is another matter. 

€ OTHER VERSIONS 

Also out on the Spectrum, Savage should also be appear- 
ing soon on the Amiga, ST and PC. 


ооо 








PIONEER PLAGUE 


MANDARIN 


Amiga • £19.95dk 
No other versions planned 













Billed as the first game to feature all 4096 colours of 
the Amiga's HAM mode, Pioneer Plague also attempts 
to combine eight-way scrolling action with digitised 
speech and a variety of original stereo music scores. 
@ GAMEPLAY 

The Pioneer Probe Mark IV is terra-forming any planet in 
its path, having lost an essential piece of code and gained 
a whole host of defence systems. It's also multiplying. 


PACMANIA 


GRAN 


Amiga « £19.95dk 
Also on Spec, C64, CPC, ST, MSX. 
Archimedes version under development. 












When Pacman first appeared in the arcades back in 
1980 it was an instant success and soon achieved 
cult status. This was partly due to its simple but 
addictive gameplay, colourful and advanced graph- 
ics (for the time) and great sound effects. 

Although there were hordes of home computer ver- 
Sions of Pacman a few years back, recently there have 
been very few. That is, up until now. Thanks to Grand- 
Slam you can now enjoy the latest Pacman arcade incar- 
nation - Pacmania. 
€ GAMEPLAY 
Pacmania is played over a maze filled with dots, pills, 
fruit and other scrumptious items (burp!). You control 
Pac, a sort of 3D version of 
"Smiley" (the old 70's cult 
badge now hip thanks to Асіс 
House) who's sole aim is tc 
travel around the maze eating 
any delicacies that come his 
way. Unfortunately ghosts pro- 
tect the maze from munching 
marauders and collision with 
these is fatal. These ghosts 
(Inky, Pinky, Blinky, Clyde, 
Funky and Sue) live in the cen- 
tre of the maze known as the 
cage, only venturing out when 
Pac's pigging out. Each ghost 
has its own personality 
(identified by colour) and reacts 
differently to Pac's movements. 

Luckily help is at hanc 
(mouth?), thanks to a few catch pills scattered around 
the maze, which give Pac the opportunity to hunt the 
hunters. Once a ghost has been consumed all that's left 
of the poor wretch is a pair of eves which go scuttling 
back to the cage for a new suit. І Pac gets too greedy, 
though, he might just bite off more than he can chew 
because ghosts are in season for a limited period only. 

Once Pac's gorged the maze dry it's on to the next 
maze, with more ferocious ghosties and a faster pace. 

So far there's not a lot of difference from the original 
Pacman. Upgrades come in the form of four pseudo-3D 
eight-way scrolling mazes, with only a portion viewable 
at any one time. Other additions are audio-visual 


Д б 5 
O Amiga: Pacman bounces his way out of trouble, confusing the green ghost along the way. 


First you jump through sub-Euclidean space in your 
LifeStar cruiser and descend to the first of the stricken 
planets. The quicker you navigate this section, the fewer 
probes you'll have to take out once you've arrived. 

You now find yourself above a Manhattan-like series of 
urban blocks and harbour areas, featuring the occasional 
control tower and fuel dump. At this point you swap mouse 
for joystick or keyboard, dispatch your ‘Airship ' and use 
local radar to spot Sky Hatches containing probes waiting 
to take off to take you out. 

There are four kinds of robotic adversary - circular mov: 
ing Star Shark fighters, homing bombs, air mines and 
‘Boxers’ – devices which effectively reduce the space in 
which you can move. You can either take out these little 
beauties with photon missiles (fire button), or despatch 
one or a team of programmable drones. 

Once a planet is cleared you can return to the galaxy 


improvements and a new feature — the ability to jump 
over the ghosts. 

So with some 19 levels of play you should be assured 
of a frenzied feast of fast food frolics. 
€ GRAPHICS AND SOUND 
Graphically, Pacmania manages to reproduce it's arcade 
parent perfectly (well, almost). Although at first the 
graphics appear simple, this is just part of Pacmania's 
charm. 

Pac and his foes are all beautifully drawn and animat- 
ed, with а good use of colour and definition. The charac- 
ters and mazes all move smoothly on-screen and as an 
added bonus the whole of the screen is used. 

The three soundtracks provided are simple but infuriat- 
ingly catchy and are accompanied by all those Pacman- 
esque sound effects that we've all come to know and 
love. 

@ OTHER VERSIONS 
Pacmania is available now for all the other machines 
except the Archimedes (which is reported to be identical 
to the Amiga version). 

The only noticeable difference with the other versions 
available is the screen display (half for the maze, half for 
game info) which detracts slightly from the brilliance of 
the full screen Amiga version. 





€ EXPRESS VERDICT 

Pacmania has managed to capture all the ingredients 
that made the original so popular (simple addictive 
gameplay, simple but colourful graphics and excellent 
sound effects) and then used 1988 software techniques 
to improve it. The wide appeal is still there and is com- 
plemented by immediate aims and rewards. 

Sure, gameplay may be limited, but Pacmania's the 
kind of game you can keep going back to and still enjoy, 
and is easily the best release from Grandslam so far. 

Enough said — just visit your local software dealer and 
take it away! 


Solo 








NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS + 





шеше REVICAS ET 








FISH 


RAINBIRD 


Atari ST + £24.95dk 
Out soon on Amiga, РС, Mac, C64, CPC, PCW, Apple 2, 


Spec +3 





Magnetic Scrolls’ latest adventure seems to mark no 
major departure from the system successfully 
employed in Jinxter and Guild Of Thieves, which is a 
surprise since the interface used in their most recent 
release, Corruption, was the most sophisticated 
they've come up with. 

However, Fish easily maintains Mag 
Scrolls’ reputation as the most off-the-wall 
outfit ever to have surfaced in interactive 
fiction. In how many games do you star 
as a goldfish?! And a Fish-scientist at 
that? 
€ GAMEPLAY 
"Warning: some fish are really Inter- 
Dimensional Espionage Operatives in dis- 
guise. Treat them with utmost respect, 
they have many worlds to save. And one 
of them might be yours." So says the ini- 
tial blurb and things immediately become 
a little clearer — you're role is that of a 
special agent working for an organisation 
which has the technology to warp you 
somewhere else - as someone else. 
"Host-Parasite Mode' it's called. 

So after finding yourself floating upside 
down in a bowl you quickly find three warps inside a sub- 
aquatic plastic castle and you choose which one you 
want to explore. You're after a bunch of inter-dimensional 
anarchists known as the Seven Deadly Fins whose dia- 


map and choose your next port of call. If by this time all 
planets have become infected you have failed in your mis- 
Sion and it's game over. Until next time. 

€ GRAPHICS AND SOUND 

The two most obvious elements are the beautifully-drawn, 
HAM mode inter-level screens and the ever-present 
chunky funk of the backing scores. Sub-Euclidean Space 
= а fast-moving tunnel of fractal mapping - is also very 
interesting. The planetary surfaces are also quite compe- 
tent graphically but perhaps a little too repetitive in their 
detail. 

% EXPRESS VERDICT 

Pioneer has all the makings of a classic - its graphics are 
sexy and overall presentation very professional The frac- 
tal sequences alone could make the basis for a game. But 
you're left with the nagging feeling that 4096 colours is 





© Yes, there's 4096 colours kicking around in there - just one of the 
several inter-level screens. Pity it's not a backdrop to the action. 


bolical mission is to rid the world of water. They've sabo- 
taged a device assembled to prevent this disaster and 
it's your job to find out how the device was corrupted, 
which one of the seven did it and replace the 
missing part. 

Each of the first three warps works as a 
mini-mission which you must complete to 
move onto the final and most substantial 
mission - a trip to Hydropolis, realm of the 
fish people. One finds you wandering 
around a recording studio having warped 
into the body of a general go-for, the second 
has you stranded in the back of a roadie's van 
near a hippy happening and the third finds you deep in a 
forest dodging exploding parrots. 

Weird isn't the word! You'll be either relieved or disap- 
pointed that there's no violence involved in any of this — 





entering ‘attack so and so is met with a stiff "уои don't 
need to use violence in this game’ – so the emphasis is 
placed firmly on using logical solutions to complete the 
puzzles. In a game so obviously wacko it's a good job 


probably 4000 more than you need when more depth in 
gameplay and involvement is called for. 


ооо 


INTERNATIONAL 
KARATE + 


SYSTEM 3 


Atari 5Т • £19.95dk 
Also on Spec, C64, CPC 





International Karate made it's debut in 1985 and soon 
earning the reputation of being the last word in beat- 
'em-ups. The sequel, /K+, has a new feature - a third, 
computer controlled, opponent. 
€ GAMEPLAY 
IK+ is a one or two-player game divided into two rounds: 
combat and bonus. Using different joystick combinations 
each player can produce 17 different manoeuvres such as 
punch, kick, block, head-butt, jump and move left or right. 
The idea is simply to knock out your opponent by what- 
ever means possible. At the end of the round the loser is 
dropped (unless there's a tie), his place taken by another 
computer opponent. Then it's on to the next round. 
After a few combat rounds the bonus level appears, with 
each human player competing against either bouncing 
balls (and severed heads) or exploding bombs. The game 


there's logic swimming around in there somewhere. 
€ PRESENTATION 
Fish features the usual Scrolls’ pull-down artwork — in 
this case simple ‘hand-drawn’ renditions of 
scenes. The pictures are designed solely for 
atmosphere rather than to provide any 
additional clues. If it's clues you're after 
there's a cypheric help section included 
which can be accessed by entering ‘Hint’ 
Text is clear and easily read- 
able. As with all Rainbird releases there's a 
hefty package of supplementary material. 
Aside from the ‘Landscape’ box cover and poster, 
there's a manual issued by the Department of Inter 
dimensional Espionage covering all you need to know 
about warping for beginners, along with more bizarre 
inclusions such as a weekly travel card — the 'Fish-pass’, 
a fish identification chart and a booklet on 
how to get the most from your fish 
€ OTHER VERSIONS 
Due out in November are the Amiga and 
PC versions with releases on the 
Mac(kerel), C64, CPC, PCW, Apple 2, 
and Spec « 3 planned for the New Year. 
All versions are configured from Mag 
Scrolls Vax and are essentially text- 
based, so there shouldn't be much differ- 
ence. 
€ EXPRESS VERDICT 
Despite sounding as though its authors 
are severely unhinged, Fish is one of the 
easier and more user-friendly Mag 
Scrolls adventures, and relies on 
straightforward puzzle solving rather than 
esoteric inputs. The command system is 
more than adequate and gameplay is 
sufficiently engrossing to ensure an enjo- 
yable passage through what could easily be the craziest 
adventure release of the year. 


ооо 


ends when only the computer opponents remain 

€ GRAPHICS AND SOUND 

ІК» might have gained a third player, but the action now 
takes place against just the one backdrop. There are, 
though, some animated background sequences, including 
falling leaves, flying fish and even a crawling worm. 

The sound effects are great, conjuring up the the atmo- 
sphere of those chronic 1970's martial arts films perfectly. 
€ OTHER VERSIONS 
Available оп 8-bit formats for some time, /К+ can now be 
found on Ocean's We Are The Champions compilation. 
The Amiga version should be out shortly. 
€ EXPRESS VERDICT 
IK+ is the best beat'em-up to date, lacking only long-term 
interest — which can be offset using the two-player option 
This aside, IK» is an enjoyable game. 


ooo 





© One beat-em-up the sun will never go down on... 








+ NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS 





THE BEST REASON FOR BUYING AN ATARI 
ORDER POOLS-SYSTEM !! (TM) TRADE WELCOME 


INCORPORATING - POOLSBUSTER & POOLSPLANNER 


R ТН! p А IIMATE. WE CALL OURS "THE" POOLS PROGRAM 
Shere were and stil аге a couple of ponis programs for tne Atari ST that guarantee to you performance better than chance (7) or promise to you power? to forecast the pools the way you want 
Diners are asking you for disk for free demos while weeks are going by and you are missing your chance for a dividend. Nevertheless pools-system stil remains the only one m Ihe maet del 
delivers the goods. Lets have a look at some facts. Fact user friendly and stil the only one that does not require you to be some kind of a football expert or hot shot system analyser. Fact pools 
Systems is the only опе that performed even slightly during the difficult & unpredictable Australian season. Fact 13/8/88. 4 aways ош of the recommended first 6 10 homes out of the 
recommended first 15. 20/8/88 Start of tne English season, the system trapped 9 out of the 14 score draws & all 4 no score draws. 27/8/88 9 out of the 12 score draws & 3 out of 6 no score 
draws. 4 homes out of the recommended first 6. 3/9/88, 6 homes out 








STOP PRESS!! What does the customer say: "I was very impressed with the general standard of the progams & their ease of use. | had a look around the program & worked out how to input 
tno data without the use of the manual which shows just how good the program structure is set out. To get to the point, the very first entry | did came up trumps with 2 lines of 21 12 pomis" it 
brought me a win of £11.88. Not bad for a first attempt. Thanks for an amazing program. Regards PJ.L-Solihull. (Name & Address with held for obvious reasons 


ste; sts % j p 















































































Pools-System £40.00 Scribble (Brown Waugh)-Amiga 5 8500 ST To SCART Cable £12.00 
Hi-Soft Basic Atari „269.00 Organize (Brown Waugh)-Amiga £85.00 Atari SLM804 Laser Printer +SLMC804 £1129.99 
Power Basic Atari i £46.00 BBS-PC! (Brown Waugh)-Amiga. £85.00 Epson NLX800 DOT Matrix 9 Pin Print £277.50 
APL68000 Atari £86.25 Publisher 1000 (Brown Waugh)-Amiga £160.00 Star LC10-Mono/DOT Matrix/ 9 Pin £240.00 
Fast ST Basic (Rom) Atari £76.68 Music Studio (Activision)-Amiga. £29.00 Star LC10-Colour/DOT Matrix/ 9 Pin £260.00 
Fast ST Basic (Disk)-Atari £38.27 Lattice C (Metacomco)-Amiga. £99.00 Star LC24-10/24 Pin-Multifont £387.55 
Run Time Disk (Fast Basic)-Atairi £10.64 Lattice C Prof (Metacomco)-Amiga £230.00 Star Laser Printer 8 (IMB Standard) ...£1740.89 + VAT 
Back Pack (Rom)-Atari £44.85 Studio Magic- Amiga. £50.00 Eider Soft Graphic Tablet - Atari/Amiga .. £239.03 + VAT 
Lisp (Metacomco)-Atari /Amiga £143.75 Pro Sound Designer (Complete)-Amiga. £65.00 Amiga 500 + Starter Kit £318.00 + УАТ 
Pascal(Metacomco)-Atari/Amiga £83.95 Pro Sound(Sottware only)Amiga. £27.00 As Above + Modulator £336.00 « VAT 
Expert Systems(Infogrms)-Atari £75.90 Pro Sound Designer with Midi Amiga £76.00 Amiga 500+1084Colour Mon+Starter £548.30 + УАТ 
Forth MT(Abacus)-Atari £42.55 Pro Midi (Midi Sampler for PSD)-Amiga £27.00 Amiga 500 Business Pack (A500 + Mono 

FTL Modula 2 (Hi-Soft)-Atari £62.10 Pro Sound Too! Kit-Amiga £27.00 Monitor +Printer + The Works+ Transformer 

FTL Editor Toolkit -Atari £39.97 Mono Text IBM-PC EMUL) £559.23+ VAT 
GFA Basic Interpreter-Atari £40.25 ‘Amiga 500 as above but with A1084 colour 

GFA Basic Compiler-Atari £40.25 monitor instead of the Mono Monitor ...... £674.00 + УАТ 
Lattice (Metacomco)-Atari £89.70 Atari 520 STFM (new) 1MB Drive with FREE £400 AGE Mogao A20. £23.50 
Devpac ST-V2.00-Atari/Amiga £49.45 worth of Software plus Compushop 1 Starter Kit SLE E DOR Wit T £110.00 
Logistix (Grafox)-Atari £95.45 £349.00. Atari 520 STFM as above plus Pools- Amiga 1084 Colour Monitor £245.21 « VAT 
Masterplan (Ditek)-Atari ы £69.00 ‘System -£359.00 ‘Amiga 2000 £976.50 + VAT 
VIP Professional Gem-Atari Ў £110.40 Amiga 2000 -1084 Colour Mon £1151.75 + VAT 
Superbase Protessional-Atari £190.23 Amiga 20MB Hard DRive tor 2000 £620.00 
Superbase Personal-Atari/Amiga £77.29 Atari 1040STFM(New)+Compushot 1 Starter ...£449.00 Micron 2MB Mem.Expansion -A2000 ..... £370.42 + VAT 
Fleet Street Publisher-Atari 22. £98.51 Atari 1040STFM as above + Pools-System ..... £459.00 Micron 2 MB Mem, Expansion р 

Signum (Signa)-Atari £160.00 Atari 104 STFM + Mono Mon. £533.00 А500/А1000 £391,724VAT 
151 Word Plus (GST)-Atari 9 £65.00 Atari 1040STFM + Mono + PLSTM £549.00 Pro RAM2000 (8MB RAM) Unpopulated . £198.00 «VAT 
Wordwriter (Timeworks)-Atari £65.00 Atari Mega ST2 + Compushot 1 Starter £775.00 Flicker Fixer £281.50 +VAT 
ST Doctor (Computer Concepts) £16.00 Mega 572 as above + Pools-System £785.00 Genlock A5000/A2000- (A8802) £212.60 +VAT 
Disk Doctor (Antic)-Atari £22.92 Mega ST2 + Mono + Starter £865.00 Prot. Genlock A500/A20000-(A8806) .....£605.00 + УАТ 
Prosound Designer-Atari £52.97 Mega ST2 + Mono + Starter + Pools-System .. £875.00 Perfect Vision (Real Time VID Digit) £151.13 + УАТ 
Pro Midi (Sampler Player)-Atari £15.00 Mega ST4 (4MB RAM ) « Starter £1050.00 A1010 1MB 2nd Drive (All Amigas) £117.94 + УАТ 
Pro Sound with Midi-Atari £61.23 Mega 574 + Starter + Pools-System £1070.00 Midi Interface (Standard Serial) -Amiga £25.00 
Quantum Paint (Eidersoft)-Atari £19.47 Mega ST4 + Mono + Starter £1140.00 Philips CM8833 Stero Col Mon £239.10 + VAT 
Quantum Paint Proff. («Toolkit) £27.28 Mega 574 as above + PLSSTM 8115000 Philips СМ8852 High Res Col Mon £269.20 + VAT 
ST Omnires (Sof. Colour/Mono Switch ) £33.48 Mega ST2 + Mono + Laser Printer + Amiga 1900M Mono Monitor £84.10 + VAT 
Turbo ST (Software Blitter)-Atari £33.48 Fleet St Publisher + 1st Word + Starter £1999.00 Monitor Station (Tilt & Swivel) for all 

PC-Ditto-Atari (IBM EMUL.) £60.98 Mega 572 as above « PLSSTM £2009.00 12" & 14" monitors £18.95 
Flash-Bak 8 Flash-Cache (High Speed Hard Disk Mega ST4 + Mono + Laser Printer «Fleet St. Monitor Master (Best in the market for any Atari ~ 
Utilities) For the Atari ST... £28.43 Publisher Ist Word+20MB Hard Disk+Starter..£2698.00 57,520,1040 Mega STs-Colour/Mono Switch Box.£30.00 
Saved! (The Desk Accessory)-Atari 624.20 Mega 574 as above + PLSSTM £2710.00 Mouse Master (Unique Mouse & Joystick 

Hi-Soft WERCS. (Wimp Environment Resource Triangle 1MB 2nd Drive-Atari £95.00 Switch. Allows connection of 2 Joysticks & 

Construction Set. Easy to use and powerful RCS. Triangle Dble 3.5" Drive-only for the Atari STs a Mouse or any other Controller with any 

Works in any resolution. Intuitive environment and STMs-not for the STFMs £179.00 combination that you'll require. Мо unplugging 

8 complete facilities) .... £24.20 Triangle 2.5" Drive 40/80 Track Atari £130.00 cables. The best Mouse/Joystick Port Contrilier) 

TWIST The best software switcher. Up to 14 programs Triangle 5.25" with PC Ditto Atari £199.00 Atar/Amiga £21.00 
resident at the same time-Atari. £24.20 Triangle ІВМ 2nd Drive Amiga £85.00 Mouse Path (The best Mouse Mat around. 

STAC . The best adventure creating program Triangle Internal A2000 31/2" Kit £79.00 Special anti-static & unique surface for 

for the Atari. Creating your own adventures Cumana IMB 2nd Drive Atan £112.90 а better grip & short distance travel. Perfect 

for fun or sale Й E £29.08 Cumana IMB2nd Drive-Amiga £125.00 for any Mouse on any Computer) емее 65.50 
Acquisition: Amiga ..... £183.90 Атап 20MB Hard Disk Drive (SH205) £548.00 Monitor Stands ( Very elegant and specially made 

Digi Paint (PAL)-Amiga 5. £34.91 Triangle 20MB Hard Disk Drive-Atan £435.00 1o fit any Atari or any Amiga computer) £24.00 
Digi View V 3.0 (Inc Adapter) - Amiga .............. £136.00 Triangle 40MB Hard Drive-Atari ..... £603.18 Unistand Printer Stand 2 £9.50 
Digi Droid-Amiga. » £56.50 Supra 20MB Hard Drive £502.97 PVC Dust Cover - Mega STs £7.50 
Photon Paint-Amiga £53.50 ‘Supra 30MB Hard Drive + £633.40 PVC Dust Cover - 520STFM, 1040STFM £4.00 
Express Paint V.2.0-Amiga с. £46.30 Miracle WS2000 MODEM (Atari-Amiga) £115.00 PVC Dust Cover -SC1223, SM125 £5.00 
Face 11 Amiga £19.00 Miracle WS4000 MODEM (Atari-Amiga) £169.00 Disk Boxes: 40 * 3.5" Disks. £8.95 
F-Basic -Amiga > . £55.50 Linnet MODEM (Atari-Amiga) £140.00 Disk Boxes: 80 * 3.5" Disks £10.95 
X CAD Amiga £333.50 Series Four 2123S MODEM (Atari-Amiga) .......£260.00 Disk Boxes: 100 * 3.5" Disks £12.95 
Pro Write V.2.0 - Amiga J £65.00 Nightingale MODEM (Amiga) Man. Dia £110.00 Disk Boxes: 120 * 3.5" Disk £13.95 
Kind Words-Amiga........ £39.50 95232 MODEM Cable (Atari-Amiga) £12.00 Disk Boxes: 50 * 5.25" Disks £8.95 
Analyze! V.2.0 (Brown Waugh) Amiga £107.75 Printer Cable (Amiga/ST) £12.00 Disk Boxes: 120° 5.25" Disks £13.95 




















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Resolution of 7207350. Colour Screen Res. 640°350. Palette of 64 Colours. 16 can be displayed at the same time. Works with any CGA. MDA.EGA or Multi Frequency Monitor. Comes with 
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PC3 « EGA Mono Monitor « 30 MB Hard Disk R.R.P. - £10.92.49. Our price is only £819.99 + VAT!!! All prices are inclusive of VAT & Delivery unless otherwise stated. 
A: Prices inclusive of VAT & deliver unless otherwise stated. These are only some examples, for more information call COMPUSHOP 1 ON: 01-738-8400 
If you do not see it. It does not mean we do not have it. Please call us and you will not regret it 


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P PRESS, Look 3 1/2" Disc(DSDD): 10 for £11.00. 20 for £21.00. 40 for £40.00. and 50 for £47.50. For the best prices for all Atari-Amiga Hardware (Computers, Peripherals and 
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The 6800075 

other instructions 

The 68000 assembly language 
instruction set is so large that 
certain functions are duplicated. 
Here is a list of the most effi- 
cient instructions with their 
counterparts: 

MOVEO.L #0, register 

instead of CLR.L register 
ADD.W register, register 
instead of MULS #2, register 
SUB.W register, register 

instead of DIVS #2, register 
TST.L register 

instead of CMPLL #0, register 


Time-saver 

software 

You may think the £10 - £20 
extra for an internal clock on 
your Amiga memory upgrade a 
bit rich. However, there is an 
easier way of saving the clock 
time. 

Assuming you have correctly 
set the time and date type from 
the CLI “#d df0:s/ startup- 
sequence”. This will save the 
time and date onto disc. When 
you reboot at a later stage of 
the day all you have to set is the 
time using DATE 14:30. 

When you start again tomor- 
row you must reset the date 
using DATE tomorrow 9:00 then 
type yes df0:s/startup- 
sequence” 


In the MODE for monitors 
Most PC users may be familiar 


ІШ 









lem solving. The Doc is 













house calls, but 
days.) 
Whatever your problem 


reports, 


less of your machine, 


entire display to the right or left 
using either of the following 
MODE т 

MODE 1 

The comma signifiies the 
missing operand for the display 
modes (40, 80-column text, 
colour etc). You can include this 
operand if you wish. 

To help you get things lined 
up properly, you can also use a 
test pattern: 

MODE „r,t 

This shifts the screen one 
character right, and MS-DOS 
will then ask if alignment is cor- 
rect. Typing Y ends the process, 
while typing N shifts everything 
one more space and repeats. 

You can include the 
command in AUTOEX- 
EC.BAT file to have 
this done automatical- 
ly at start-up if you 
wish, although if your 
display is badly off- 
centre you'll need to 


Share and share alike 


Doc File and Tech Tips are our weekly slots for prob- 
our 
ready to solve your problems (Sorry, he doesn't do 


then how many doctors do these 


gramming, communications, 
a program you need - you should be able to get an 
answer here. And because Express is- weekly, you 
won't have to wait long for an answer. 

Tech Tips is the space for 
undocumented short-cuts and features, 
arounds for problems in software packages. Regard- 
send those hints here. Write to 
Doc File or Tech Tips, New Computer Express, 4 
Queen Street, Bath, BA1 1EJ. 


Stuck on Ultima IV? Having difficulty get- 
ting the locals to tell you anything useful? 
Ve haff vays of mekking zem tok! 

At least on the PC versions (and there" 
no reason to assume that other formats 
aren't the same) all of the characters’ con- 


versations are stored in a series of files 
with the TLK extension. 

So to view them, simply TYPE them to 
the screen, or copy them to the printer 
picking out such useful snippets as the 
locations of the shrines and stones, and the 
very mantras themselves. 

This is not an instant victory, if only 
because you still have to be a jolly active 


perform multiple 
MODE commands 
since you can't specify 
the number of spaces 
to be shifted. 


More info on 

Amiga INFO 

Use of the Amigas 
INFO command, either 
from Workbench ог 
from the CLI, can be 
frustrating since it 
always seems to give 
you information on the 


adventure to become an avatar, 
should make life easier. 


with the MODE command in 
MS-DOS for switching between 
various screen modes, or possi- 
bly for controlling the serial 
port. 

However, there is another, less 
familiar use. 

Many PC monitors do not have 
a horizontal hold switch, which 
can mean you display being 
slightly off-centre on the moni- 


tor. 
MODE allows you move the 








disk currently in the 
drive. This isn't partic- 
ularly useful, since 
you'll almost certainly 
want information about some 
other disk - usually to see if 
there's enough space to copy a 
file. 

The way round this is to use 
the command from the CLI in 
the form: 

INFO? 

The query (?) asks the Amiga 
for the correct syntax of the 
command, and any necessary 
parameters. In this case, Amiga- 
DOS will respond with "none", 


but it 





resident computer medic, 


hardware, software, pro- 
trouble finding a book or 


your contributions: bug 
work- 


because there are no other 
parameters. However, this 
pauses execution of the com- 
mand until you type return. 

So now, simply remove your 
Workbench disk, insert the disk 
you actual want INFO to oper- 
ate on, then press return. You'll 
actually get INFO on the disk 
you want. 


Get SET 

for protection 

If you've ever blithely issued an 
ERA *.* command on your PCW, 
only later to realise that there 
really was something on your 
disk you wanted to keep, this 
one's for you. 

You can write-protect individu- 
al files quite simply using the 
SET.COM utility (you knew 
there had to be some purpose 
for it). 

First, copy SET.COM from your 
CP/M master disks to the RAM 
disk using PIP M:=SET.COM. 
Then insert the disk containing 
the file you want to protect and 
enter M: SET filename [RO], 
thus making it read-only. 

Wildcards are allowed in the 
filename, so you could, for 
example, protect all the chap- 
ters of your great 20th Century 
Novel with the command M: 
SET novel.* [RO]. 

Files treated in this way can- 
not be erased, although they 
can be destroyed by formatting 
the disk. 

To un-protect them, also use 
SET.COM, in the form M:SET 
filename [RW]. 


Commodore's 

joystick japes 

An old one this, but it still 
catches a lot of people out: 
beware the auto-firing joystick. 

Because the C64's joystick port 
is handled by the same I/O chip 
as the keyboard, strange things 
can happen. 

The usual scenario is, after а 
hard night's blasting the living 
daylights out of alien scum, you 
return to the 64 the next day 
and turn on your machine. 


As you begin typing spurious 
Characters appear on the 
screen. Usually, you put this 
down to your fumble-fingered 
typing, delete it, and start 
again. More random characters. 
“Argh!” you cry. “My keyboard 
has had a mental breakdown.” 

Not a bit of it. You'll probably 
find you've simply left your joy- 
sticks autofire switched оп. 
turn it off and all will be well 
again. 

Similar things can happen if 
you leave your joystick plugged 
in with something resting on it 
(your foot, perhaps). If the han- 
е is off centre it wilt also send 
spurious codes to the 64, con- 
fusing the hell out of the poor 
beast. 


Animating 

Neochrome 

I have recently found out about 
the “little known" animation 
facility of Neochrome by Atari 
Corp. By selecting the anima- 
tion facility from clicking with 
the right mouse button in the 
hole of the R of GRABBER. You 
are then presented with six 
bars with four containing xx 
and two saying ADD and DEL. 

First load in your picture, eg 
the Dire Straits picture you get 
with the computer. With the 
mouse outline the area which 
you wish to animate. Now press 
“ада”. The current picture is 
now the first frame of your ani- 
mation sequence. 

The area you outlined should 
be black, so now press the right 
mouse button. You can now 
either alter the picture normally 
or move the area by moving the 
mouse while holding the but- 
ton. After you have changed the 
picture press ADD: once more. 
This is your second frame. 

You can make up to 99 frames. 

Once you have finished rewind 
the sequence by clicking on the 
box next to ADD. To run each 
frame click on the centre out- 
lined box. You can load or save 
the sequence by clicking on the 
appropriate function on the left. 


The dead zones 

of the PC keyboard 

One of the great things about 
the PC keyboard is that with the 
various combinations of ALT, 
SHIFT and CTRL, you can nor- 
mally assign a multitude of 
functions to each key. 

However, there are one or two 
dead zones, and some are quite 
peculiar. For example CTRL will 
not work with any of the top 
row number keys (except 2, 6 
and -), nor with the keypad keys 
8, 5, 2, -, *, Ins and Del. 

CTRL-TAB does nothing, nor 
does ALT-TAB, ALT-ESC, ALT- 
bs or ALT-ENTER. 

A good reference source for 
extended keycodes is any of 
Borland's Turbo manuals. 





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Business or pleasure 

What has happened to Atari's 
much-hyped business push for 
the ST? The latest bundling deal 
doesn't exactly do much for the 
ST's serious image; 21 games, 
joystick plus organiser software. 
Even this month's Atari User 
Show at Alexandra palace is 
aimed at games players. 

Atari won't argue the point: 
it's booked lots of floor space, a 
large proportion of which will 
house an amusement arcade. 
No mention, of course, of the 
Hyper series, Microsoft Write or 
the portable ST. 

The Hyper series, when 
released, is designed for serious 
users. Targeted primarily at 
Mega STers (although there 
isn't any reason why 520 and 
1040 owners shouldn't join in 
the fun) the series includes 
HyperPaint, HyperChart, Hyp- 
erDraw, HyperPlan and Hyper- 
Project. Hurry up Atari - get 
these products out! If Hyper- 
Chart is as good as Davrelle's 
PC version (and the others live 



















up to the hype) the ST just 
might be treated as a serious 
business machine. And not 
something simply for shooting 
sloshed Santas from the sky. 


DTP Update 

Not so long ago AMS were a 
force to be reckoned with. When 
a new product arrived from 
them - usually after several 
name changes - it was general- 
ly raved about and worth the 
wait. What of their first ST prod- 
uct which has been waiting in 
the wind for over six months? 
Yes, it too has been subjected to 
a name change from Finesse 
Paint to Flair Paint. Hopefully 
the package won't go the way 
of the machine. 


own SLM804. 


Germany. 


Fontastic formatting 


Scientific and academic users of the ST will be 
delighted to learn of a source for Tex and Meta- 
font, the popular document formatting and text 
processing programs in those communities and 
more usually found on Unix workstations. 
German publisher Tools has various imple- 
mentations of both programs - with English 
documentation - at prices between about £70 
and £100. They will run on any ST with 1Mb or 
more of memory, and support most popular 
printers including the H-P LaserJet and Atari's 


More details from Tools GmbH, 
Strasse 108, D-5300, Bonn 1, Federal Republic of 








AMS is slowly losing its iden- 
tity since amalgamating with 
Logitech. Logitech deal in PC 
paraphernalia and Logitech 
wants AMS to do the same. 
There was talk that all AMS's 
non-PC software would have to 
go. Flair Paint too. However, the 
latest news - and it is good 
news - is that Flair Paint will be 
coming under the AMS label. 

Most DTP software suffers 
from awful picture editing facili- 
ties. Enter Flair. It sits in memo- 
ry as an accessory and offers 
the DTP user shape drawing, 
image shrinking and stretching, 
huge draw area, picture magni- 
fication — in short, everything. I 
saw Flair at the previous Atari 
show and was impress-ed by its 
speed and fea- 
tures. Get the 
product out quick- 
ly, АМ5 - before 
Logitech decides 
differently. 

On the subject of 
DTP; DMC's Cala- 
mus was originally 
to be distributed in 
the UK by Signa, 
but it now seems 
that Atari has won 
the contract. Good 






news. Calamus 
Kessenicher| boasts а built-in 
text editor and 


drawing package, 
allows text to 





viewed at up to 300 dots per 
inch and has true WYSIWYG 
output. According to Les Player, 
Atari's technical support man- 
ager, the package should be 
ready for Christmas priced £399. 


Allis confusion 

Turbo Cup, one of the latest 
French-brewed titles to be dis- 
tributed by Loriciels UK, comes 
with a Porsche 944 - model, 
that is. What will Boots and 
Smiths make of the package? 

Starglider II, which was sup- 
posed to come on the dual for- 
mát disk conceived by Jez San 
and his Argonauts, confused the 
hell out of these stores, accord- 
ing to Rainbird. Having both ST 
and Amiga on one label proved 
too much of a dilemma. One 
which Boots and Smiths 
couldn't handle. They demand- 
ed, instead, that Starglider 
appear in separate ST and 
Amiga versions — none of this 
dual format nonsense. Sheesh! 
Who are these guys? 

Finally, a tip for Space Racer 
from Loriciels. This one should 
make it onto the shelves with- 
out а second thought. Burning 
around on a jet cycle dodging 
pillars and wasting opponents 
is fun, but a little tricky. Press 
F2 to pause the game, F10 and 
finally space to skip a level. 


Richard Monteiro 











Railway Games for the PC 


Model railways without the mess or expense! 
Run a railway on your PC! Absorbing 
railway-based games for IBM PC or 
compatible (including Amstrad PC and 
РРС). АП games have a save game feature - 
you will need it! (3.5" or 5.25" disks). 


Recent Modern Image games 


€ RailFreight Buxton - intensive stone traffic in this busy quarrying 
centre, with classes 20, 25, 37, 40, 45 and 47. Single track otticniecks 

make operation difficult, but not quite impossible! 

ShedMaster Finsbury Park - manage servicing and maintenance in 

this busy depot before the days of the HST. Diesels of many classes 

must be fuelled, serviced and sometimes repaired in time for their 

booked duties. 

€ Liverpool Lime Street 1986 - a hectic morning in this always busy 
terminus, with north and south Trans-Pennine services as well as 
London and local traffic and holiday extras. Make sure that each 
service gets the right engine - electric to Euston and the south, or 
the appropriate diesel for Trans-Pennine, North Wales or the north. 

€ Exeter 1987 - still a key point оп a summer Saturday, with busy 
holiday traffic on the Great Western main line, plus Waterloo, 
Barnstaple and Exmouth services. The remodelled station layout 
made some things easier, but at times you may wish you could build 
more platforms! 

€ Burlington Northern - our first simulation of North AMerican 
paces this features the single-track bottleneck line between 

kane (Washington) and Sandpoint (Idaho) in the American 
lorth-West. Use your discretion to side-track manifests to let 

Amtrak and priority intermodal services pass unhindered. Glossary 
of American terminology provided! 


Other games available - send SAE for complete list (sent with each order) 
Price £14.95 per game incl. VAT, postage & packing (UK or 
overseas). Payment with order please. 

























SIAM Ltd. (Dept. NCEi1), 1 St. David's Close, Leverstock Green, 
Hemel Hempstead, Herts. HP3 8LU 


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Amiga A500 + 5 Games, Modulator, Photon 





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Stop AT Nothing 
When IBM trumpeted the Micro 
Channel as the saviour of the PC 
industry 18 months ago, plenty 
of players in the PC clone league 
were happy enough to toe the 
line. One after another they 
negotiated with Big Blue to 
licence the new architecture 
and jump on the MCA band- 
wagon - even ош beloved 
Amstrad was seen 
to approach the 
cyan-tinted doors. 
Time passed, and 
it became increas- 
ingly apparent that 
users were unhappy 
to bin their ATs and 
existing software in 
favour of a system 
with dubious bene- 


fits for them but оке 
obvious ones for 
IBM ee E 


Lots of people see 
MCA as a marketing 
ploy rather than the 
next generation of PC system 
bus, and clone makers are 
showing their traditional prag- 
matism by giving the public 
what they want. It remains to 
be seen if what they want is 
EISA. 

The Extended Industry Stan- 
dard Architecture is the alterna- 
tive to MCA put together by a 
conglomerate of hardware and 
software companies. Most are 
American, and most are big 
names like Compaq, Tandy and 
Zenith. EISA's main advantage 
is compatibility with the exist- 
ing AT bus, which just about all 
the 286 and 386 PCs use. 

With EISA you don't have to 
throw away your current expan- 
Sion cards and software, but can 
Still take advantage of many of 
the heralded advances of MCA, 
including a full 32 bit address 
bus and OS/2 (if you have the 
memory). 

The only snag, so far, is that 
the new architecture is probably 
further into the future than 
MCA, with the first machines 
not due until the second half of 
“89. Still it's good to know that 
some of the major PC makers 
dare to say "I think, therefore I 
question IBM." (just one of 
many unflattering plays on Big 
Blue's latest ad campaign, "I 
think therefore IBM". A person- 
al favourite is "I'm thick, there- 
fore IBM".) 


Not many people know... 
If you want to delete a directory 


th баъли 


Did: 37% 


Betirit  FUTI-QUM вонага End-Last тыр-Меу тылын 


(eg CALIFoRN and its contents 
from a disk, you can type DEL 
CALIFORN from the parent direc- 
tory, rather than having to cp 
into CALIFORN do a DEL *.* and cp 
back out. The 'Are you sure' 
message still appears, and you 
Still need to вр (Remove Directo- 
ry) the directory name after- 
wards. 


Who's counting? 

California 10 Pak is a collection 
of 16 DOS utilities. This says lit- 
tle for the guy who named the 
suite but adds to its value as a 
PC tool. The pack is a collection 
of goodies aimed mainly at the 
programmer but with a passing 
word for the everyday user who 







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One of the many disk display screens Paked into the California 10 


likes to know what's going on 
inside the machine. 

The programs can be grouped 
into three areas: 'everyday use', 
‘occasional use’ and ‘use if you 
blitz a file/disk and are desper- 
ate'. The first category includes 
a frontend menu with help 
Screens, which simplifies DOS 
without getting in the way like 
GEM (the colour scheme's vile, 
though). 

There's also а souped up 
directory display which can sort 
on filename, filetype, size or 
date, a couple of utilities for 
comparing files (good for check- 
ing dodgy copies) and a string 
search routine for text or hex 
files. 

Text and hex files can also be 
viewed with two of the utilities 
in the ‘occasional’ group and 
there's also a memory and disk 
viewer. 

The final set includes a disas- 
sembler for COM and EXE files, 
which puts the disassembly on 
disks, a FAT and disk sector 
viewer and a machine configu- 
ration display which looks good 
in the manual but for some 
unknown reason hung the 
Amstrad 1512 every time. 

The one obvious omission is a 
disk sector editor, as opposed to 
viewer. It's nice to see what's 
wrong, but rather handier to 
have the option to put it right. 
Price is £79 and further details 
can be had from CSPI on 0753 
4127879. 

Simon Williams 

















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Commodore Amiga A500 - £369.00 inc VAT 
Atari 520 STFM Super Pack - £369.00 inc VAT 


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MIGA ВІЙ 


In the picture 
The Amiga was one of the 
undoubted stars of the recent 
Computer Graphics show. 
Although it may not be up to 
the standard of some of the 
machines present, it certainly 
showed that you can produce 
professional graphics on sys- 
tems costing less than £10,000. 

Of the more affordable prod- 
ucts, notably a genlock device 
from Applied Systems апа 
Peripherals at the astounding 
price of £114. Running on both 
the A500 and A2000 systems, 
this undercuts existing genlock 
devices by at least £100. (Com- 
modores own  genlock 
board for the A2000 cur- 
rently costs around £250). 

Further back up the 
price scale, Cotron had a 
14" colour monitor at £650 
for use with Microway's 
Flicker Fixer which elimi- 
nates the eye-wrenching 
screen flicking in the Ami- 
дав interlaced mode. A 
special monitor like the 
Cotron unit is necessary 
because ordinary monitors 
do not have a sufficiently 
high display frequency to 
cope with the extra scan 
lines. 

Perhaps of more general 
interest was the appear- 
ance of grey-imported 
add-on processor boards 
featuring the top range 


DIR A, 
file li 


expal 


ting 
than 


printe 


MORI 
display a screen at a time, with forward and] 


limited string] 


RESII 
mem 
now 





AVAIL Shows the amount of free chip and 


FORMAT New option allows quick format- 


GRAPHICDUMP Dumps the front window to) 


be selected before printing starts. 


backward scrolling and 
searches. 


using them without constant disk swaps or] 


Workbench 1.3 on it. The other 
way is to ask an American pen- 
pal to buy a copy for you. 

Yes, Workebench 1.3 is avail- 
able in US retailers, priced 
around $30. 

Incidentally, although it might 
be "non-essential", Commodore 
US obviously thinks its worth 
releasing; why are European 
users getting second-class ser- 
vice? 


Acorn meets Amiga 
On a brief visit to Ariadne Soft- 
ware I saw a preview of a prod- 
uct called Beebulator. 

This brilliant emulator lets an 
Amiga run any program written 
for the BBC Micro, regardless of 
whether theyre in Basic or 
machine code. 

The product is to be launched 
by Commodore in January and 
while it will obviously boost 
Commodore's drive to get the 
Amiga into schools and col- 
leges, it can only enhance the 


V1.3 main command changes 


ALIAS Allows CLI commands and extensions 
to be renamed with a string, eg, instead of 


you could use FULLDIR to get a complete | 
st. 


inded memory available. 


of old, already formatted disks - faster 
erasing them. 


er, with a delay so another window сап 


E Extended түре command, allows file 


IDENT Allows certain programs to made 
jory-resident: a big plus since you сап 
make CLI commands memory-resident,| 





Motorola processors. One |using the RAM disk. 
is the soon-to-be-released |WHICH Searches for a file on any disk and 
А2620 board from Com- |Will identify its location in directories. | 





modore which features a 
68020 processor and will sell for 
£1,405, while the other was 
CSA's 68030 board. Both cards 
really kick in the afterburners 
and leave standard Amigas for 
dead. 


Workbench 1.3 

The on-going saga of Work- 
bench 1.3 is still unresolved. 
Although Commodore had pro- 
mised to have the upgrade here 
by “the autumn”, here we are at 
the end of October and still no 
sign of it (watch the news 
pages - Ed) 

Informed opinion says 1.3 is a 
non-essential upgrade - in other 
words, it might be nice to have 
some of the new features (and 
some of them sound rather nice 
indeed) but it won't be severely 
handicapping your Amiga if you 
don't get it. 

However, for true Amiga buffs 
and the merely curious, there 
are a couple of ways to get your 
hands on it right now. One is to 
check out some of the latest US- 
originated software which has 


general appeal of the Amiga, 
and not just among members of 
the BBC fraternity who are 
thinking of upgrading to a new 
machine. 

Interestingly, the Beebulator 
throws some light on a general 
Amiga problem. Someone had 
complained to me about the 
slow scrolling on the Amiga 
when playing the Federation II 
multi-user game (MUG) оп Com- 
punet. Apparently, 64 users 
manage to respond more quick- 
ly than Amiga players. 

But seeing a BBC program 
listing race up the Amiga screen 
under Beebulator confirms that 
the problem is caused by the 
console device in AmigaDos 
used for standard screen dis- 
plays. It can easily be avoided 
by good programmers. 

On the subject of Compunet, 
Nick Green, who originally con- 
ceived the system, has just 
taken over the management, so 
I expect to see some interesting 
developments before long. 

John Collins 

















Growing pains 

Programmers, (to tweak Parkin- 
sons Law) expand their pro- 
grams to fill the memory avail- 
able. At the time of the launch 
of the QL, a multitasking system 
with 128K for £400 was quite 
something. PSION managed 
(just) to crush their programs 
into it and left a minute amount 
for data! 

Not so today - never mind a 
measly 128K being insufficient, 
a publishing package in devel- 
opment currently is likely to be 
at home with its recommended 
text editor only on systems with 
890K expansion cards. 

Superbasic compilers аге 
largely the reason. No longer 
does the programmer have to 
wrestle with 68000 assembler, 
or burn the midnight oil trying 
to cut an excess 100 bytes from 
his code to make it fit. Write it in 
Superbasic, compile it and Hey 
Presto! а machine code pro- 
gram. If it doesn't fit - call it an 
advanced version and sell it for 
expanded machines only. 

This evolution in OL offerings 
is not without its benefits. It is 
only now, as pundits declare the 
QL death throes that many qual- 
ity packages are reaching the 
market. Despite all the predic- 
tions the OL is holding its own. 
More than a few companies are 
making a healthy living from the 
QL market alone. 

The owners with a basic 
machine must be content with 
the cut-down offerings these 
days along the lines of the 1512 
specials that appeared for the 
Amstrad PC. If that market is 
anything to go by, makers of 
memory expansions should be 
gearing up for the run on their 
products. Without a doubt, it 
looks as if the big QL program is 
here to stay. 


Games at source 

A small Finnish software house 
has launched a new platform- 
type game: Spaceman Sam - the 
source code! The game is on 
offer at £13 but for an extra £57 
you get the full assembler 
source code plus the in-house 


Cringing pologies to all Spec- 
trum owners, but due to cir- 
cumstances beyond our con- 


Screen and sprite designer sys- 
tems. 

After an hour battling to get 
the intrepid Sam to achieve his 
target I think I need the source 
code to find out how to progress 
to the next level! 

Details from Aholasoft, Kirjur- 
intie 3, SF-05400 Jokela, Fin- 
land. 


Expansion news 

With the Futura becoming a 
"might have been" and the out- 
look for the CST Thor XVI 
unclear, news of a DIY upgrade 
for the main QL board comes as 
a welcome surprise. 

Quanta member Mike Lilley 
released details of the new 
board which cures many of the 
major niggles of the original 
design. Switched 128/512K main 
memory, parallel port, reliable 
battery backed clock, multiple 
switched ROM sockets, stan- 
dard keyboard connectors and 
five expansion ports are stan- 
dard features. Іп development 
are the hard disk interface, 
modem card and ports boards. 

Prices and availability are not 
yet confirmed but are expected 
to be sub £100 for a board need: 
ing some populating. Details 
from Mike Liley on Royston 
61236. 


Sector spurs comms growth 
OL communications has gained 
a new lease of life following the 
launch of the Sector Bulletin 
Board running the Q-View soft- 
ware. Its success has made 
other commercial companies 
look closely, with the Super User 
Bureau on-line from mid- 
September and Digital Precision 
boss Freddy Vaccha confirming 
recently that DP is likely to have 
a board running soon. 

Sector has melded its commer- 
cial interest and simple QL user 
support well, keeping any “hard 
sell” well away from the mes- 
sage pages. Apart from the pub- 
lic board, it provides program- 
ming hints, news and advice. 
No longer do QL-ers have to 
reside as a Special Interest 
Group (SIG) in the “naughty cor- 
ner” of other peoples boards. 

Other boards with a currently 
active QL SIG are Peacenet on 
0895-448998 and Gnome at 
Home on 01-888-8894. Both are 
viewdata at 1200/75. 

Sectors Board runs on 0772- 
454328 after 6pm and week- 
ends. 

Paul R. Connell 


trol we are unable to bring you| 
the Spectrum column for this 
dummy issue. Тһе person 


responsible has been chastised 


will be initiated as soon as 
Possible (ie, next week). 

In the meantime, if you have 
any Spectrum news, views, or| 
information you'd like to 
share, write to SPEX, at New 
Computer Express - ASAP. 




















a 











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Been feeling depressed about 
the prospects for your CPC late- 
ly? Fear not, because despite 
the cries of the doomsayers of 
the last year, there's new life in 
Amstrad's oldest computer. 

It is thoroughly heartening to 
see Mr Sugar's new advertising 
for the CPC Computer System, a 
packaging deal that ought to 
ensure plenty of newcomers to 
the fold this Christmas. 

Basically, for less than the 
price of one of the newer 16-bit 
wonders you get a complete 
computer system - and the rest. 

£500 will buy a 6128 with disk 
drive, colour monitor with TV 
tuner (so you need never miss 
Neighbours again), and a radio 
alarm clock (to remind you 
when Kylie is due to appear). 
There's also a 17-game compila- 
tion including old faves like 
Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. 
Oh, and a joystick. And a desk 
to put everything on, in and 
under. 














IE DO Omo | 


























Gunning for the cowboys 

There has been recent controversy 
over various cowboy repair outfits 
performing unsatisfactory repairs on 
C64 hardware at extortionate prices 
Fortunately help is at hand in the 
form of the Independent Com- 
modore Products Users Group 
(ICPUG) which is running a regular 
round-up of repair sharks (and 
providers of good service). 

If you need repairs to Commodore 
kit, it could save you a lot of hard- 
ship if you check it out first, and if 
youve been ripped off ICPUG would 
love to know. 

Membership to ICPUG provides 
other useful features such as pro- 
gramming advice and tips, hardware 
and software reviews and discounts. 
ICPUG memberships costs £10 a 
year with a £1 entry fee for which 
includes a one year subscription to 
the club's bi-monthly newsletter. 

For further details contact: ICPUG 
Membership Secretary, Jack B 
Cohen, 30 Brancaster Road, New- 
bury Park, Шога, Essex 102 ТЕР 
alternatively telephone (01) 590 8849 
during normal office hours or (01) 
346 0050 at evenings and weekends. 


On-line aid 

Another source of information and 
services is Compunet, the bulletin 
board originally available to C64 








But since you've already got a 


à CPC, youll probably be more 
| interested in the list of forth- 


coming software goodies, and 
some excellent stuff it is too. 

Heading up the list must be 
Mediagenic's conversions of two 
classic coin-ops - Afterburner 
and R-Type. SDI is also coming 
from the same source. 

Also on the coin-op front, 
Imagine is promising Typhoon, 
Guerilla War and Road as well 
as what promises to be one of 
the smash hits of this Christ- 
mas, Operation Wolf. 

Telecomsoft has Savage, a 
dungeon-delving hack 'em up in 
arcade style. 

The more thoughtful among 
you should be kept busy with 
two recent releases from Level 
9: Ingrid's Back and the excel- 
lent Lancelot, and Magnetic 
Scrolls should soon release the 
extremely bizarre Fish! in 
which you play, hey!, a goldfish 
in a plot of intergalactic double- 
dealing and intrique (would we 
make this up!). 

Finally, role-play fans can look 
forward to Pools of Radiance, 
the US Gold/SSI conversion of 
the classic Advanced Dungeons 
& Dragons game system. 

Impressive or what? 


Amos Walker 


pc orem 


users only (but since expanded to 
cover the 16-bit upstarts, the Amiga 
and ST). Membership to Compunet 
provides you with access to news, 
advice and tips, on-line communica- 
tion with other users (party-line) and 
the opportunity to download soft- 
ware. 

This software can be professional- 
ly produced (such as previews of 
forthcoming games) or programs 
provided by fellow members. Occa- 
sionally a real gem of a utility can be 
downloaded - it's a question of find- 
ing them. 

Fortunately most UK users can 
access Compunet at local call rates. 
If you're interested contact Jane Fir- 
bank on (01) 997 2591 or write to 
Unit 26, Sheraton Business Centre, 
Wadsworth Road, Perivale, Middle- 
sex UB6 7JB. 


It's show time (again) 

Hot on the heels of the PC Show 
extravaganza at Earl's Court, the 
12th Official Commodore Computer 
Show, returns to its popular and 
more homely venue later this month. 

With over 75 exhibitors displaying 
their latest software and hardware 
across the entire Commodore range, 
you should find something of inter- 
est and perhaps even a bargain or 
two. 

The show will be held at the 
Novotel, Hammersmith, London W6 
from Friday, November 18 to Sunday. 
Details can be obtained from 
Database Exhibitions, ^ Europa 
House, Adlington Park, Adlington, 
Macclesfield SK10 ANP. Alternatively 
you can telephone Show Hotline on 
(0625) 879920. 


Rick O'Shea 




















More than а typewriter 
Welcome to the first PCW Patch. 
Usually we'll be talking about 
PCW news, software and tech- 
nical hints and tips, but we 
decided to begin by dispelling a 
few myths. 

Most people who have heard 
of the PCW think of it as just a 
word processor. But not only are 
they highly efficient at this task, 
they also excel as personal com- 
puters with a large range of 
first-class software. 

The PCWs come as a complete 
system, with monitor and sys- 
tem unit, keyboard and printer. 
When the machine was first 
conceived, Amstrad and Loco- 
motive Software agreed to 
marry the hardware and soft- 
ware into an easy-to-use system 
for word processing. 

The keyboard has all the usual 
alphanumeric and punctuation 
keys, but also a host of defin- 


able and dedicated function 
keys. This is where the 
PCW/Locoscript combination 


really scores over other word 


processors - when 
you need to per- 
form any WP func- 
tion - find & 
replace, or moving 
through the docu- 
ment - you dont 
have to remember 
complex com- 
mands. Just press 
the appropriate 
key. 

To make things 
even easier, Loco- 
Script uses a 
series of  pull- 
down menus for 
the most common 
commands. The 
simple us of the 








Hit the Flipper 


Perhaps the single most irritating 
thing about the PCW is the fact that 
while most software runs under the 
CP/M operating system, Locoscript - 
the key program - doesn't. 

This means that if you want to 
switch from Locoscript to another 
program you have to switch off your 
machine and re-boot with a CP/M 
system disk. 

Or at least, you did until now. With 
Flipper you can effectively split your 
PCW into two, having Locoscript in 
one segment and CP/M in another, or 
even having two CP/M segments. 


This allows you to switch instantly 
(well, three seconds) from Locoscript 
into a CP/M program, and then back 
again without losing your work, or 
even without losing your place in the 
Locoscript document. 

It will work on any PCW with 512K 
of RAM, and at 5p under £25 includ- 
ing postage, Flipper must be an 
essential purchase. 

One of those programs that trans- 
forms your computer and makes you 
wonder how you ever got along 
without it. 

More details from Software Impera- 
tive, Ashleigh House, Bussage, 
Stroud, Gloucs GL6 8AZ, or tel 0453- 
886931. 








cursor keys and ENTER makes 
Locoscript menus a powerful 
way of learning the software, 
but once you find your way 
around menus can slow you 
down. So, experts can clear the 
menus and revert to use of key- 
board shortcuts 

There are two models in the 
8000 series which come 
equipped with a dot-matrix 
printer which allows you to cre- 
ate graphics and use different 
fonts while still producing rea- 
sonable quality type. 

The 9512 looks different, with 
the styling of the case looking 
more like а  PC-compatible 
Functionally, it is the same as 
the 8000 series, but comes with 


a daisywheel printer which pro- 
duces much higher quality type, 
but does not allow you to print 
graphics - no good for desktop 
publishing (although you can 
add a dot-matrix printer of your 
own). 

The PCW range may not have 
the technical features of 
machines like the ST and the 
Amiga, but for people who 
require a powerful but economi- 
cal computer system for use in 
the home or office, it is hard to 
beat. 


Classic trio saved 

Three of the best PCW pro- 
grams have been saved from 
extinction by Copy Comm Soft- 


ware. The company has negoti- 
ated the rights to two of Info- 
com's finest: Hitch-Hiker's Guide 
to the Galaxy, and Leather God- 
desses of Phobos, both priced at 
£24.95 which have been 
dropped by official distributor 
Mediagenic 

And if solving intergalactic 
puzzles is not your bag, try pro- 
gramming in dBase IL Сору 
Comm also has the world's 
Number 1 database on the PCW 
after previous distributor First 
Software pulled out of the busi- 
ness. Price is £67.95. 

More details from Copy Comm 
on 0337-7444 

Dave Axford 
Chris Bryant 








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agga 
BOX 


Classic collection 

CDS software has just ann- 
ounced a deal with Superior 
Software to re-release 15 classic 
Superior games on the Blue Rib- 
bon budget label. Titles such as 
Crazee Rider, Stryker's Run and 
Codename Droid will now be 
available on dual-format BBC/ 
Electron cassette, retailing at 
£2.99 each. 

Richard Hanson, 
Software's MD, commented: 
“The time is right for our 
superb range of games to enter 
the budget arena”. 

The games are scheduled for 
a staggered release, four titles 
at a time - with all 15 due with- 
in the next year. The first batch 
of games (Percy Penguin, Mr 
Wiz, Repton and Karate Com- 
bat) will be on sale at the 
beginning of November. 

Superior has also launched a 
new full-price game called By 
Fair Means Or Foul for the 
BBC/Electron. BFMOF is a box- 
ing simulation with the ability 
to cheat, provided the referee 
doesn't notice!. Available now 
on BBC cassette (£9.95), BBC 
5.25" disk (£11.95), 3.5" disk 
(£14.95) and Electron cassette 
(£9.95). 


Superior 


Power computing 

SJ Research is currently devel- 
oping a system capable of run- 
ning UNIX and MS-DOS pro- 
grams on the Econet network, 
using BBC micros as terminals. 


New hardware 

MSX users, might be forgiven 
for thinking that they are being 
ignored by the computer press 
in the UK. With the publishing 
of Express, however, this state 
of affairs is over, and MSX users 
will now have access to infor- 
mation about a far-from-dead 
format. 

First, there is news from 
Japan regarding ASCII's latest 
computer. This is the MSX 2+ 
machine, and although details 
at the moment are rather 
Sketchy, it is believed to have 
improved disk handling а 
choice of 20,000 colours, and an 
eight channel sound chip. The 
processor used remains a mys- 
tery - it may still be the humble 
Z80, or a faster variant. More 


SJ Research are convinced their 
system provides schools with 
the best of both worlds - a wide 
range of UNIX/MS-DOS soft- 
ware able to run on existing 
BBC hardware. 

Release date and price details 
have yet to be fixed but you'll 
get details as soon as we do. 


Two for the show 

The Electron and BBC Micro 
User Show, the premier Acorn 
exhibition, returns to its popular 
London venue later this month. 
With some 70 exhibitors dis- 
playing their latest software 
and hardware across the entire 
Acorn range, you should find 
something of interest and per- 
haps even a bargain or two. 
Experts will be at hand to 
answer your questions and give 
advice on a wide range of tech- 
nical matters. 

This, the 20th show, sees the 
addition of a new feature - Inno- 
vation Row - where you will be 
able to view the grand finalists' 
ideas and help decide on the 
winner. 

The show will be held at the 
New Horticultural Hall, Grey- 
coat Street, London SW1 from 
Friday, November 11th to Sun- 
day, November 13th 

The doors open at 10:00am 
and close at 6:00pm (4:00pm on 


Sunday). 
Entrance fees are £5 for adults 
and £3.50 for  under-16s, 


although by ordering tickets in 
advance you'll be able to save 
yourself £1 per ticket. Details 
can be obtained from Database 
Exhibitions, Europa House, 
Adlington Park, Adlington, Mac- 
clesfield SK10 4NP. 
Alternatively telephone Show 
Hotline on (0625) 879920. 


Andrew Reece 


details on this machine will be 
given when it reaches Europe. 
There are no details as yet of a 
UK launch. 

We also have news, this time 
from Germany, of a soon to be 
released hard disk for the MSX 
2. This will be a 20 Mb drive, 
designated the HD-20, with a 
proposed UK price of between 
£200 and £300. This price, if cor- 
rect, will make these drives the 
cheapest yet available for a 
home computer - not counting 
floppies, of course. 


Into the Valley 

Moving away from hardware 
and over to the software scene 
now, all of you eagerly awaiting 
the release of Konami's Kings 
Valley 2 won't have to wait 
much longer. The launch date is 
now some time in November, so 
even as you read this the game 
may be available. A review 
should follow shortly, so watch 
this space. 

Two games worth looking out 
for are Game Over 2 from 
Dynamic, and Afterburner by 
Mediagenic. Lets hope they live 











up to expectations. These аге 
just a few of the titles soon to 
be released on the MSX system, 
so even though hardware sup- 
port in the UK has almost disap- 


peared, the software houses 
are continuing to convert titles 
for the MSX. 


Conversion blues 

Talking of conversions, two 
pieces of software I have seen 
recently seem to be taking the 
dumping of Z80 code from the 
Spectrum a little too far. Colos- 
sus 4 Chess from CDS, and 
Hunt For Red October from 
Argus Press Software are both 
let down by poor graphics. 
Colossus 4 plays a really mean 
game of chess and offers com- 
prehensive options, making the 
game the most difficult I've 
played' оп the MSX. The screen 
display on the other hand is 
possibly the worst. 

The same can be said for Red 
October - the coding seems to 
be pure Sinclair Spectrum, even 
down to the limiting the display 





options due to the Spectrum's 
lack of memory. Surely with the 
MSX's 64K of main memory and 
16K of video memory we could 
at least have a version that 
matches that on the Commodore 
64? Two good pieces of soft- 
ware that could have been bet- 
ter. 

Still on conversions, I have 
just seen some screen shots in a 
Japanese MSX magazine, and 
some of the graphics just have 
to be seen to be believed. You 
should see the screen shots of 
the Japanese version of Zoids. 
In Japan this game is available 
on cartridge, and has obviously 
been rewritten by the Japanese 
programmers. 

If any of you MSX games play- 
ers have any pokes, hints or 
tips, please, don't keep them to 
yourself. Write in and share 
them with your fellow MSXers. 
Even the best games players 
sometimes need a prod in the 
right direction. 


Keith Neal 


The Write Stuff 


In the first issue of every maga- 
zine (like this one) you'll find an 
article (like this one) asking for 
contributions from the readers 
(like you lot) Why should 
Express be any different? 

And why, indeed, should you 
bother? After all, aren't you pay- 
ing us to write the magazine for 
you? Well, yes - but with your 
help we can make it even bet- 
ter. 

For one thing, try as we 
might, theres no way we can 
review every software and 
hardware product that gets 
released. The industry is just 
too big now. And to keep 
Express 
topical, we 
have to 
review 
things 
quickly. 
But when 
you use 
products, 
day after 
day, you 
uncover the 
bugs, and 
the useful 
shortcuts, 
and some- 
times there are basic design 
flaws that only become appar- 
ent after extensive use. 

Don't keep them to yourself: 
share them with your fellow 
Express readers via Tech Tips, 
our column for helpful hints. 

Furthermore, its a certainty 
that among our readers, there 
exists an untapped source of 
expertise in all sorts of areas - 
graphics, sound, communica- 
tions. Perhaps you'd care to 
write about it - drop a line to the 
editor. 


But even if you haven't got 
experience, were sure you've 
got opinions. Share them via 
Express Mail, our letters page, 
the fastest way of getting your 
message across to your fellow 
users. And there'll be a weekly 
prize for the author of the witti- 
est, most interesting, or 
thought-provoking letter. Start- 
ing a user group? Or looking for 
one to join? Stick a note in the 
Express Mailbox 

Problems of a technical nature 
can be addressed to Doc File, 
our resident medic/psychiatrist 
for problematic computers and 
their depressed owners. If 


It's news to us 
Hardware manufacturers, software publishers, 
retailers: to get your products into the Express 
news pages you don't need a glamorous PR firm 
to buy us lunch at the Savoy (although it helps). 
Nor do you need to send a sheaf of press releases 


in a glossy folder with colour photographs (we'd 
rather have lunch at the Savoy). Just let us know 
about new products, price changes - anything of 
interest to computer users is news to us. Write, 
fax (0225 446019) or phone (0225 446034) and talk 
to Colin Campbell or Peter Worlock. 





you're in trouble with a recalci- 
trant RS232 connection, or wag- 
ing a losing battle with your 
printer DIP switches, write to 
the Doc. 

If you don't feel qualified to 
participate in such learned dis- 
course, write to Learning Curve, 
our weekly slot for beginners. 
Well be covering all of the 
basics, plus some more 
advanced topics, in future 
issues, but if there's something 
baffling you right now, write 
now. 





sax SALES 








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NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS + 











A last look at the events of the week, by cynical old hack Private I 


about at the time. As the 
head of the whole firm, 
that should make me the 
most important man in 
the industry. 

“Except for the punters. 
They're really important. 
“Oh, and the retailers. 
“And the journalists. 
“But aside from all 

them, then I'm the -" 
The droll fellow has 

staked his claim This 

one could run and run. 





























One of the year's arcade hits, 
Mediagenic's R-Type has much imi 
tated. Check out the genuine 16-bit 
conversions of the game that 
promises to be one of the smash 
hits of this Christmas. 


Back to Basics 


Everybody's first language went out of fashion for a 
while, superceded by modern replacements like С and 
Modula-2. But Basic is back. On machines like the 
Amiga and the PC, with products from the likes of 
Borland and Microsoft, the new Basics are fast, power- 
ful - and still the easiest languages to learn and use. 


Plus 


© First for news - from games to operating systems, 
from Spectrums to PCs, if its news about computers 
you'll read it first in Express 

@ First forreviews - new hardware, new software, new 
add-on products ... you'll find the latest products in 
Express 

O First for bargains - the latest prices and special 
offers come first in Express 










No accounting for taste 
News that the 
Archimedes is selling 
well to Italian schools 
serves to highlight the 
exotic nature of both 
education and computing 
in foreign parts. They 
really do do things differ 
ently over there. 
1 Not content with having as its 
e's the greates nakan distributor the 1806 ostab- 
lished G Ricordi & Co (you know 
them: "one of the world's major 
е Says classical music and opera 
publishers"), Acorn has also tied up 
à deal with the grandly named 
Instituto Tecnico Statale 
Commerciale Vincenzo Comi. This 
loosely translates to Grange Hill 
Comp, apparently, and is a "techni- 
cal school for accountants 
These budding accountants are just 
14-18 years old and not only do they 
have to deal with the brain-numbing 

























































"The most important man in the 
games industry? Oh itss definitely 
me - it always was, but no one ever 
realised!" 

‘And just who is making this self 
effacing claim? Geoff Brown, the 
boss of US Gold, Maybe Ocean chair- 
man David Ward. Or even one of 
those gung holier than 
thou Yankees like 
MicroProse's Bill Stealey? 

But no. The most impor 
tant man etc etc is Nick 
Alexander - and don't say 
"Nick Who?". Not content 
with being the nephew of 
the Tory grandee Norman 
St John Stevas, witty St 
Nick now reckons he 
heads the games pile by 
courtesy of the Virgin 
takeover of Mastertronic 

“With Mastertronic, Bulldog, 
Ricochet, Arcadia, Virgin, Leisure 
Genius, Melbourne House and Sega, 
we're now the biggest firm in the 

















Germanic depression 
Potential PCW buyers beware. Faced with considerable short- 
ages, a batch of the old Amstraddian workhorses has been 
shipped over from Germany. The problem is not that LocoScript. 
and the manual have been written in that determinedly weird 
German Shoveitalltogether withStrangecapitalsLanguage, but 
rather that the printer and expansion ports are different. 

‘Alan “It's the chips, I tell you" Sugar's outfit is taking the line 
that it's “all bloody nonsense”, and that there are no difficulties. 
Well that's all right, then. 








Money off vouchers worth over £4! 





The launch issue of New Computer Express brings with it an 
incredible set of vouchers aimed at saving you a fortune 
when you buy goods through the magazine. 

The vouchers are valued from 50p to £2.50 and you'll find 


industry and are active in every sin- FOUR of them free on the front of the launch issue! You'll be 
gle sector of the games market Tweedledee and Tweedledum dept able to use them to obtain discounts on orders from all partic- 
Hardware manufacturing? That pair of hardware bookends 5 : 
"Aside from that." Commodore and Atari really aren't ipating advertisers — check out 


subjects of double entry bookkeep 
ing and other financial stunners, but 
they also have to do it on Archies 
Sometimes double Math on a 
Monday doesnt sound so bad 






And shows? quite the same despite giving the this issue and see how many of 
"Aside from shows." distinct impression of being two i 
And peripherals. Reese ihe suns Enrere d | e mal Morea dS M cally the We Accept 
“Well we do sell those and subtle and revealing differences Express Vouchers’ logo. These 
Mastertronic used to make joy- Take the States. Phone Atarioutof { companies are already offerin 
тер d пла дал оза | сотраліве яте ee M VOUCHERS 
And magazines? those naggingly cheerful recorded Е : Á 
"OK, and magazines. But we do voices, extolling special offers on er discount and you're laughing. @ The sign of a good deal! 
саша Brus sell more us Wem ST mu. ET So not only does Express 
any other firm. And every single sec- nd Commodore? You get a sturdy, x r " Б 
tor is growing strongly at the brusque security guard, demanding offer you the latest bargains from the industry's leading 
expense of all the other sectors - to know why you've been rash advertisers, it also offers better discounts than you'll find 


unless that's the one we're talking | enough to phone... anywhere else. 


It’ brilliant to buy! 
Shoot from the Lip... a 










People who buy these games arent of our genera- programs and if they want shoot ‘em ups with no 
tion. They listen to Wet Wet Wet records and male presence welll do that. I don't want to sound 
Duran Duran. ‘right оп or anything but we dont want to be a 
patronising software house. „ 

Leslie Bunder of Audiogenic 
It concerns me that some of the so-called captains 
of our industry continue to launch new products 
and make new promises without having the abili- 
ty to deliver. 












Alternative Software on naming 

its new label Again Again 

For discerning Amiga and PC owners everywhere 
(sorry, ST owners, your computer couldn't handle 
the graphics!) 
Martech press release for Phantom Fighter 


If girls want knitting programs well write knitting Commodore UK boss Steve Franklin 





— 
























EN * NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS 


COMING SOON 








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